


Gallifrey Records: The Hangover Split Album

by cereal, gallifreyburning



Series: Gallifrey Records [16]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:51:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a harrowing night in Las Vegas that none of them remember, the Doctor, Rose, Donna, Martha, Jack and Mickey try to piece together what happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt picture was generously created by [littlewhomouse](http://littlewhomouse.tumblr.com).

  


Rose wakes to the feeling of something hard and uncomfortable beneath her cheek. She makes a mental note to feed the Doctor an extra sandwich, rolls over, and promptly falls two feet.

The impact startles her fully awake, eyes popping open as a headache screams to life and, oh, not the Doctor, then. A coffee table. She’d fallen asleep on a coffee table. Whose coffee table is this?

She rubs at her eyes, everything swimming in and out of focus for a few moments, before she’s finally able to see. Ah, the hotel suite, Vegas. Of course.

Jesus, what had they done last night?

The suite is trashed, the very  _expensive_ suite, the one the MGM Grand had so gleefully taken the Doctor’s credit card for, and is that – that’s Jack.

Wearing only his pants and lying spread eagle in the hallway.

Rose pushes to her feet and the room tilts, floor now seemingly a steep incline as she staggers toward Jack.

“Jack,” she hisses, nudging his shoulder with her foot. It’s hard to tell with the leopard print, but her loafers appear to be covered in glitter.

With a groan, Jack opens his eyes. “Rose?”

Before she can answer, Jack’s rocketing up from the floor, barreling into several walls before finally tumbling into the bathroom. A few seconds later and she hears the sound of a stream of liquid hitting a basin, before it’s muffled by Mickey’s voice in strangled protest.

Mickey comes charging out of the loo, thankfully wearing clothes, but they’re hopelessly rumpled.

“Rose,” he says, catching sight of her. “Did I sleep in the bathtub?”

She searches her memory, but there’s nothing there. Nothing after standing on the balcony to their suite last night, toasting Jack’s good fortune at being inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame yesterday evening.

Rose shrugs. “I slept on the coffee table, if that makes you feel better.”

Mickey cracks his neck, twisting to stretch out his back. “It doesn’t.”

His eyes scan the room. “Where’s my wife?”

Rose shrugs again, more concerned with the pounding in her head. “Check your room.”

Mickey nods and moves toward the hallway, sticking his head inside the bedroom they were supposed to sleep in, even if he ended up in the bath.

“Found her,” Mickey says.

If Martha made it to bed, maybe Martha has some answers, and Rose joins Mickey at the doorway, stopping to snag the Doctor’s sunglasses off the bar and slip them on her face. She might just keep them, if it’s the Doctor who let her drink this much.

Martha’s lying on a fully made bed, in her bra and her jeans, with a dark splotch on her bicep that Rose can’t make out with the sunglasses on.

Mickey crosses to the bed, shaking Martha by the ankle. “Wake up, babe.”

Martha groans and rolls over, the arm with the splotch making contact with the duvet, and then she’s yelping, flinging herself from the bed and grasping her bicep.

Jack comes running into the room, still in only his pants, just as Martha moves her hand.

It’s a tattoo.

“Hey, Mickey Mouse!” Jack says gleefully, pointing at it.

And it is, it’s Mickey Mouse, surrounded by the outline of a heart.

Whoops.

~~~~~

It smells like eggs. And bacon. And pancakes. Oh, Rose Tyler and all the ways he loves her.

Except, oh, no, no, no, that’s not good, no food, food’s a terrible, rotten, awful idea right now.

The Doctor shifts to clutch at his stomach, the movement hampered by the way his face seems to stick to the vinyl of his pillow.

Why did they buy vinyl pillows? Probably Jackie, he thinks, opening his eyes only so he can roll them.

Except he stops. Because there’s no pillow, no bed, no Rose – there’s a booth, and a table, and he’s apparently slept at it.

Sitting up, he’s able to see several booths and tables, and, oh, shit, did he pass out in a restaurant? He slips out of the booth, staggering to his feet and, fuck, not a restaurant, a  _buffet_.

His eyes dart back to the table, a small tabletop advert for the Golden Nugget poker room sitting on it.

Yes, right, they’re in Las Vegas, for Jack. But he’s apparently downtown, and their room is back on the Strip.

A few of the employees are looking at him as they bustle by, preparing to open the restaurant for the day, he assumes, and one finally stops.

“Never seen them let anyone sleep in here before,” the bloke says. “You two must be pretty high rollers.”

The Doctor stares at him.

“Anyway, your friend’s by the salad bar,” the bloke tells him, pointing in the direction of the food.

The Doctor nods and tries to thank him, but his throat’s too dry, the words lost as he forces himself to swallow a few times instead.

He walks toward the salad bar, turning the corner to see a riot of white fabric and ginger hair slumped against the side.

 _Donna_?

Stooping down to put a hand on her shoulder, the Doctor shakes Donna awake, backpedaling in a hurry as she comes to with a jolt and a flail of limbs.

She’s on her feet, unsteadily, in a matter of seconds, and it’s only then that he gets a good look at her.

The white fabric is – oh, god, it’s a wedding dress. Donna notices at the same time he does, her voice loud and shrieking at him.

“What did you do?!”

“Nothing! I don’t know anything!” Facing an accusation like that from Donna, those exact words would be coming out of the Doctor’s mouth regardless of whether they were true, purely in the interest of self-preservation. In this case he happens to be in earnest. “I woke up in a puddle of pancake syrup over there in booth ten. Where’d you get the dress?”

She scowls at him. “There’s no need to shout,” she mutters, even though he hadn’t been the one raising his voice. Of course, given the pounding at his temples and the fact that the soft hubbub of activity from the kitchen sounds like World War Three in his ears, Donna’s probably in as rough shape as he is. She plucks at the shiny taffeta skirt in bewilderment, still swaying a bit. “I don’t … I don’t remember.”

“Well when did we get here? We must’ve come for dinner and … gambling?” He squints at the entrance to the buffet, and at the flashing, glittering casino floor beyond.

“No. Not possible. I don’t gamble,” Donna replies, gingerly letting go of the salad bar and bringing a hand up to rub her forehead.

Her ring finger glints at the Doctor.

The pounding in his head stops as his heart skips a few beats, his blood frozen in his veins, his knees wobbling even more than the rainbow-colored jello on the salad bar beside them. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open, he reaches out for Donna’s hand, pulls it in between them.

“No.” It’s the only syllable he can manage, although there’s a far more colorful litany of words spinning through his head right now.

He knows that ring, down to the number of carats and the purity of the platinum setting and the price tag. He’s been carrying it around in his pocket for two weeks now, waiting for the perfect moment to present it to Rose. There have been several close calls: after a bottle of wine at Rose’s favorite restaurant in London; two in the morning, when he was already on his knees mopping Joanie’s spit-up and Rose got out of bed to help; during their last interview on Jack’s morning show; in the studio, when she played him the new song she’d written for their next album; every time she pins him down on the bed and does that thing with her tongue.

“You … are … _kidding me_.” Donna snatches her hand back from the Doctor, pulling off the ring and brandishing it in his face. She sucks in a deep breath, winding up for a good shout. “If you try selling me that line about not knowing anything one more time, I’m going to murder you. And let me make things very clear, Rock Boy: if this is your ring, and you’re the reason I’m in this dress, I’m going to murder you _slowly_!”

“That’s not your ring, it’s Rose’s,” the Doctor snaps, snatching it from her and fishing in his pocket for the ring box.

“Then why isn’t _she_ the one wearing it?”

“I hadn’t gotten around to the ‘asking her’ bit yet!” the Doctor says, his volume ratcheting up at the same pace as Donna’s. A few elderly patrons on the other side of the restaurant turn to stare. The Doctor pulls Donna to the far end of the salad bar, away from prying eyes. He crams the engagement ring in the box and tucks it safely back in his pocket.

Taking her by both shoulders, he leans down just enough to meet her gaze reassuringly. “Donna, trust me. There is a reasonable explanation for all of this. We can’t be married, Donna. We wouldn’t. We _aren’t_. I’m not wearing a ring, see?”

The Doctor is, in fact, mistaken. On the ring finger of his left hand is a plastic thing, neon pink with a garish orange rubber jewel, the sort of prize kids get from a claw game at an arcade.

“I’m going to cut your heart out with a salad tong!” she howls, backing away from him.

“Bugger.” The Doctor drops into a crouch, tugging the plastic ring from his hand and pitching it across the restaurant (it lands in the vat of Bacon Bits) before he bows his head and buries his fingers in his hair, waiting for the death blow from Donna. Because dying now sounds a far sight better than facing Rose later. “Bloody  _Vegas_.”

~~~~~

Some sort of argument has erupted in Mickey and Martha’s bedroom, finger-pointing and raised voices and who’s responsible for whom when they’re out drinking.

It’s too much for Rose’s head, making it throb and ache, and she only endures it for a few moments before staggering back out to the living room and collapsing on the sofa.

Jack follows her, sprawling wide across the cushions next to her.

“You gonna get dressed?” She says, raising the sunglasses and her eyebrows pointedly.

“Why? Afraid the Doctor will get jealous? Where is he anyway?”

The first two questions don’t merit a response, but that last question – it’s a good one.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe he’s in our room.”

She pushes up off the sofa and makes her way, as gently as possible, back down the hall, passing Mickey and Martha and the argument that’s thankfully devolved into quieter voices, and Martha wearing a top.

Opening the door to the room she and the Doctor were assigned, it’s clear no one’s slept there. The bed covers are slightly rumpled, but they did that together, before they’d even left for the evening, wrestling and kissing and filthy promises for later that clearly weren’t kept.

No, if the Doctor had even attempted to sleep here, everything would be untucked and it’s possible the sheet wouldn’t even still be on the bed.

“Not in here,” Rose calls, raising her voice and immediately regretting it.

“He’s not in my room either,” Jack says, sweeping up next to her in a way that makes her startle, which, in turn, makes her stomach roil. At least he’s clothed now.

There’d been no discussion of where Donna would sleep, but Rose had assumed she’d end up with Jack, which usually happened when those two got to drinking.

“Was Donna in there?”

Jack shakes his head. “Much to my regret, no.”

Rose chews on her lip. “I didn’t see them in the living room either.”

It’s starting to make her anxious, not that the Doctor and Donna can’t take care of themselves, but there’s such a gap in her memory, and it’s completely unsettling.

Jack shoulders by her to check the room’s closets and en suite, but they’re not there either.

She walks back out to the living room, checking every conceivable spot, as Jack does the same in the rest of the bedrooms.

A few minutes later, and she’s standing with Jack, Mickey, and Martha in the entryway to the room.

“Maybe they’re at breakfast?” Jack’s voice is unbothered and Rose tries to cling to that. If there were really a problem, Jack would be worried, too.

“Maybe,” Rose says. “Wait, I’ll just call him. Jack, you try Donna.”

All four mobiles are in a bowl on the the suite’s kitchen table, fruit strewn haphazardly beside it, and each of them fish out their own.

Rose dials the Doctor, smiling briefly as his grinning face takes over the screen, but it clicks immediatley over to voicemail.

“His phone’s off,” Rose says, looking to Jack.

“Donna’s, too.”

Rose’s stomach clenches again, demanding food. “Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat. We’ll ask the front desk if they’ve seen them.”

Everyone agrees, and they take the lift downstairs, Martha scowling at the reflection of her new tattoo in the mirror that lines the back of it.

“I can’t believe you got a tat–” Jack starts, but Rose steps on his foot, cutting him off. If that argument starts up again, in this confined space, Rose’s head is going to explode.

The lift dings and they exit out on to the casino floor.

“Lobby’s this way,” Mickey says, and they follow as he picks his way by the banks of slot machines.

There’s a massive queue at the front desk and they file in, watching adverts and Twitter streams play on the giant screens behind it.

Plenty of inanity scrolls by, obnoxious tweets from tourists, apparently “psyched” to be in Vegas, and Rose lets her eyes slip shut, taking a series of deep breaths to try and clear out her headache.

“Oh my god,” Martha gasps, and Rose’s eyes pop open, zeroing in on the main screen.

There’s a tweet from the Master’s Twitter account, usually a source of endless amusement for her and the Doctor, but this one – it’s not amusing at all. It’s horrifying.

“ ** _Look who I saw out on the town in #Vegas!_** ”

And there, underneath it, is a picture of her, of Rose Marion Tyler, clinging to a stripper pole.

Mercifully, she is mostly dressed, although Jackie might have something to say about the height of those platform heels and the shortness of that sequined skirt, if she was here. It is most definitely not the skirt that Rose woke up wearing a few minutes ago, either.

Jack and Mickey’s heads tilt sideways as they track the picture scrolling across the screen.

“Rose, I had no idea you were so flexible,” Jack says brightly.

Martha punches his shoulder. “Not so shabby yourself, Jack. Look behind her.”

Rose squints at the screen as the picture slides into oblivion on the far end of the ticker — sure enough, in the shadows beyond the range of the flash, Jack Harkness is on the stripper pole next to her, wearing nothing but a thong and his body bent at a startling angle.

“My ass looked amazing!” he says, grinning cheekily. “Do you think we could get a better angle on that and use it for station promos?”

“Jack!” Rose hisses, snagging his arm with a tighter grip than is necessary and hauling him across the lobby, toward a potted plant and a little bit of privacy. Martha and Mickey follow, and they end up in a small circle beside a ficus tree.

“Right. Does anyone remember  _anything_?”

A round of blank stares meet Rose.

“Room service brought the champagne, we stepped onto the balcony for a toast, and that’s it. That’s all I’ve got,” Martha says.

“Same,” Mickey echoes.

Jack shrugs. “I remember calling for a fourth bottle of champagne, but everything’s blank after that.”

“Mickey, let me have your mobile,” Martha says, holding out her hand. “You go ask if anyone at the front desk has seen the Doctor or Donna. We’ll see if we can ring them again, and see if any of us have any photos that might help us figure out what happened“All right, babe,” he says, depositing the device in her hand and walking away. Four little screens flicker to life, and Rose can’t tell if her nausea is because of the hangover, or dread.

~~~~~

“Get up.” Donna’s foot digs into the Doctor’s hip, more of a kick than a nudge. “Give me your mobile. We have to call the hotel.”

The Doctor slowly rises to his feet, obligingly digging in his pockets. The only things he finds are the ring box and a piece of paper, wadded into a tiny ball. “It’s gone,” he says, instinctively patting his back pockets too. “My wallet, my mobile, everything’s gone. Where’s yours?”

“I’m in a wedding dress; it doesn’t have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with pockets? Let’s go talk to the front desk, maybe they have a phone we can use.”

The nasally, exasperated tone of Donna’s voice is hitting precisely the wrong chord, jangling on his last nerve, the one that’s holding his sanity in place. The one that informs him exactly how bad an idea it is, calling the hotel, talking to Rose.

Maybe at some point last night, he’d had a moment of lucidity and he tried to hide some damning evidence of what they’d done – or stop himself from calling Rose and confessing everything – by pitching their mobiles into traffic on the Strip or throwing them into the fountain at Bellagio.

“No! No calls, we aren’t calling  _anyone_. Not until we sort all of this” — he waves vaguely at the both of them — “out. I know exactly what we’re going to do.” He pauses, not particularly for dramatic effect (although she rolls her eyes at him), but to gather the words in his pounding head, to make sure they come out in the right order. “We’re having pancakes and coffee.”

“What about your wallet?” Donna says in a loud whisper, trailing behind him as he walks back to the booth he woke up in.

“I’ll think of something,” the Doctor replies.

Twenty minutes, a short stack of pancakes, and two cups of coffee later, things are looking up. The Doctor still can’t recall what happened last night, but his nausea is beginning to fade. Donna’s still unhappy, but she isn’t shouting.

“I was obviously not in my right mind when I picked this dress. Can you imagine me actually getting married — properly married — in a sweetheart neckline?”

“You look lovely,” the Doctor says absently, pulling out the ball of paper he’d found earlier in his pocket and painstakingly flattening it on the table, smoothing out the creases until he can read it.

It’s a marriage license. The signatures in the  _groom_ and  _bride_ spaces are completely illegible, but the name of the chapel is printed in a rounded handwriting at the bottom, along with the name “Henry van Statten” on the witness’s signature line.

The sight makes him go queasy again.

“We have to go here,” he says, pointing at the name of the chapel. “We have to go to The Love Bunker. They’ll sort this out.”

Just then, the waiter comes by with the coffee pot again. Topping off Donna’s mug, he asks, “Can I clear any of these plates for you?”

“I think we’re done,” the Doctor says.

“Will you be paying with cash or credit, or charging to your room?”

“Room charge,” Donna says before the Doctor can reply. “We’re in 1425.”

The waiter smiles, nodding toward Donna’s dress. “Not the honeymoon suite, then?”

“ _No_ ,” they answer in unison.

They’re out of the restaurant in a hurry, but navigating the casino floor with a woman in a wedding dress proves to be a nightmare. Well-wishers stop them every ten feet, cooing out congratulations and compliments. 

It’s an older crowd, too old to have been the demographic for even his first album, and he’s thankfully only recognized as “a lucky guy,” and not as the Doctor. 

The bloke at the taxi stand recognizes him though, dashing across the line of cars in valet to retrieve his mobile and insist on a picture before securing them a ride. He takes the photo himself, arm stretched out in front of him as he crowds to get them both in the frame. 

The Doctor catches a glimpse of himself in the phone’s screen and winces. Stubble on his jaw and bags under his eyes – he looks _rough_. He briefly considers cleaning himself up in the restroom before heading out for “The Love Bunker,” but Donna’s already got him by the arm, pulling him into the cab that’s finally been secured. 

Donna barks out their destination, and the Doctor tips his head back to the seat, closing his eyes as the cab pulls into traffic.

~~~~~

The phones give away next to nothing. 

Jack’s only got one picture on his, and it’s not anything Rose needed to see, ever. Jack crows about it, but ultimately admits he doesn’t remember taking it. Bunched up at the bottom of the frame, though, barely visible, are his pants, and it’s the pair he’d had on that morning. They’re Iron Man-printed, and apparently new, which means wherever the photo was taken, it’s somewhere they were last night. 

Mickey’s phone contains a rapid-fire succession of Martha-getting-tattooed photos, the two of them smiling and laughing and kissing as the needle moves and her tattoo grows. There’s a logo visible on the wall in the background of some of them, and Rose instructs Jack to get on the internet and try and locate the shop.

Between Rose’s own phone and Martha’s, there’s a hazy progression of events, but nothing definable. Nightclub lights, stripper poles, colorful cocktails, it’s a mess of information. There are poker chips and roulette wheels, French-Canadian acrobats and Elvis impersonators, scantily clad men and scantily clad women, but hardly any clues as to  _where_ all these things happened. 

Or why. Because Rose has been well pissed before, they all have, and it looked nothing like this. 

There are some photos that they’re actually in, and there’s a point where Rose and Martha have both changed outfits, and then the Doctor and Donna stop appearing. Had they split up to get changed? It’s not anything either of them had packed, and not anything either of them are wearing now, and it presents more questions than it answers.

By the time they’ve gotten through all the photos, Mickey’s rejoining them. 

“No one’s seen them,” Mickey says. 

Jack taps his mobile a few times. “And their phones are still off.” 

Rose sighs. Of course it couldn’t just be _easy_. Why would it be _easy_? “Did you find anything on the tattoo shop?” 

Jack tilts his phone toward her. “There are three shops in town with a devil woman logo, it could be any of those.”

Rose is leaning in for a closer look when Martha’s hand begins tapping her shoulder rapidly.

“Look, look,” Martha says. “I found him.”

Rose wheels around, expecting to see the Doctor standing in front of her. Her eyes dart through the crowds on the ground, searching for him.

“No,” Martha says, pointing at the Twitter screens. “Up there again.”

It’s the Doctor’s face, looking haggard and vaguely green, next to a tan, young bloke who’s smiling widely. 

“ _ **Rock star at work this morning! #Baller #ILoveMyJob**_ ”

“Well,” Jack says. “At least we know he’s alive.”

Rose scours the picture before it scrolls out of view, looking for any sign of where it was taken. The timestamp is recent, within the last twenty minutes — maybe the Doctor is still there.

Although why he hasn’t at least called to check in, Rose can’t imagine. Well, maybe she can, but she doesn’t particularly want to. Like the time they were on a tour stop in Tokyo, and the Doctor vanished for twenty-four hours without a word, only to reappear and sheepishly admit he’d bought a karaoke nightclub and a snow monkey rehabilitation center. Here in Vegas, where nearly everything and everyone is for sale, who knows what sort of trouble he’s gotten himself into. 

“The Golden Nugget. Where is that?” she asks.

“Downtown,” Jack replies. “I’ll have the valet pull the rental car around.” He steps out the hotel door.

“Should we split up and cover more ground? Martha and me could follow up the tattoo shop lead, and you and Jack can go to the Chicken Nugget place, see if he’s still there?” Martha shoots Mickey a look, but for some reason he seems very excited by the idea.

“I suppose that couldn’t hurt,” Rose says. “You two take a cab, we’ll take the rental.”

“C’mon, babe,” Mickey says, his arm sliding around Martha’s shoulders before he hustles her away.

Rose stares after them for a minute before joining Jack outside at the valet stand. She finds him holding a set of keys and staring in utter confusion at an enormous red Ford F-350 truck, complete with chrome bumpers, flashing lights on top, and a seal on the door that reads “City of Las Vegas — Fire and Rescue” and underneath that, “Battalion Chief Canton Delaware.” 

“I gave the valet my ticket, and he brought me this,” Jack says, eyes wide.

“Martha and Mickey are on the tattoo shop situation, we’re covering the Golden Nugget. Buckle up, Jack. We’ve got ground to cover.” With hardly a hitch in her step, Rose snatches the keys from his hands as she walks by, circling around to the driver’s side. If she lets every little thing faze her today, she’s never going to find the Doctor or figure out what happened last night, so she’s decided to roll with whatever comes their way. 

Jack climbs into the truck beside her. With a turn of the key, the engine roars to life and she maneuvers the massive vehicle into traffic on the Strip. It occurs to her, two blocks later, that she has no idea where downtown Las Vegas actually is, or which direction she should be driving.

~~~~~

The Doctor dozes off in the cab, and wakes up to the sound of Donna arguing with the driver. He sits up, wiping drool away from the corner of his mouth and blinking. His headache has dwindled to a manageable level, but Donna’s agitation and the swaying motion of the cab on a bumpy road triggers the churning in his stomach again. 

“I won’t be given the run-around, you’re legally obligated to take us the most direct route to our location, not haul us out to the middle of nowhere so you can squeeze more fare out of us!” 

The Doctor had forgotten about paying for the cab — he’s fairly certain they can’t charge it to a random room, like they did their buffet breakfast. 

“What is the name of your supervisor?”

“Lady, I’m telling you, the Love Bunker is here,” the driver retorts. “It’s an old missile silo, some nutjob bought it and converted it into a chapel-slash-bomb shelter-slash-museum.”

One glance out the window and it’s obvious they’ve left the city. They’re surrounded by rocky terrain, bluffs and buttes made of striated colors of stone. It’s beautiful, in an eerie and isolated way, like nature had created a massive layer cake in every shade of red and orange.

Out Donna’s window is a small concrete building with a round metal door. “That’s it?”

The driver twists further around in his seat to regard the Doctor. “That’s it, buddy. The fare’s forty-eight dollars and fifty cents.”

Donna’s head swivels and she stares at the Doctor, too. “I paid for breakfast,” she says. “Now it’s your turn.”


	2. Chapter 2

There’s absolutely nowhere to leg it, they’d be swallowed up by desert terrain in a matter of yards, and having to explain an airlift rescue operation and an apparent wedding to Rose seems like a little too much for him to handle.  
  
Maybe just one or the other, and only if she’s feeling charitable.  
  
“Listen, mate,” the Doctor says. “I seem to have lost my wallet.”  
  
The driver’s face turns murderous and he reaches for the door handle.  
“Wait, wait, wait,” the Doctor stammers. “I think it’s in there though.” He gestures at the building. “If you come in, we’ll look for it. I’ll double the fare.”  
  
The driver looks at the meter. “And you’ll tip…40 percent? On the new fare?”  
  
The Doctor nods. “And I’ll tip 40 percent, on the new fare. In fact, depending on what we find, I’ll either need you to drive us back to the city, or drop me some place this one,” he thumbs at Donna, “can never find me. Say an even $300 for the whole thing?”  
  
With the way this trip is going, there’s no way his wallet’s inside, but at least it’ll buy them a little time, and he watches the driver carefully for a response.  
  
Finally the bloke nods.  
  
“All right,” he says. “But I’m not going in there, too much weird shit. I’ll wait in the car. And if you try to run, I hope you’re not afraid of coyotes.”  
  
The Doctor’s eyes widen, “Right, right,” and then he and Donna are opening their doors, the ground crunching beneath their shoes.  
  
“If you don’t find your wallet and some answers in there, I’m feeding you to the coyotes myself,” Donna says, walking alongside him with a glare.  
  
“They wouldn’t like me,” he says, like it should be obvious. “I’m far too lean.”  
  
Donna wheels on him, just as his hand is making contact with the front door.  
  
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”  
  
Before he has a chance to answer, the door swings open, a balding, solidly built man in a suit standing in front of them.  
  
“Great,” the man says. “You’ve come back!”  
  
He ushers them inside, the overwhelming military theme offset by flowers and white lace. It looks like a child’s tea party inside a soldier’s barracks.  
  
“I realized I’d forgotten to check your license,” the man says. “You had gotten a license, right?”  
  
The Doctor scratches at the back of his neck. “Actually that’s part of why we’re here. I seem to have lost my wallet, and my license is inside. Donna, do you have your license?”  
  
Donna snarls at him, slapping her hands on her thighs. “Wedding dress, remember, dumbo? The real reason we’re here?”  
  
The man looks at them curiously. “Actually, it would be the same license. You know, from the courthouse?”  
  
The Doctor’s feeling trapped, Donna fuming beside him, a cab driver ready to feed him to coyotes outside, and a man in front of him asking for proof of identity he doesn’t have. He needs answers and he needs them now.  
  
“Listen…sir…mate…buddy…”  
  
“Henry,” the man supplies.  
  
“Listen, Henry, I need to know what happened here last night. All of it.”  
  
Henry glances back and forth between the two of them, Donna still looking vaguely homicidal and the pleading expression the Doctor’s sporting.  
  
“Well, you showed up late last night,” Henry says carefully. “I was ready to close, but your driver convinced me to stay open. You,” Henry points at the Doctor, “kept asking if it was ‘transferable,’ you wanted to make sure you could transfer the marriage to someone else. I’m not really sure what that meant, and obviously for legal reasons, it’s not, or I would be married to Helen Mirren.”  
  
“I lost track of you for a bit, you went off somewhere with your driver, and I was helping fit the lady,” this time he gestures at Donna, “into her gown, but –”  
  
Donna interrupts, “You were what?!”  
  
The Doctor elbows her. “Not now,” he grits out, looking to Henry to continue.  
  
“Like I said, you went off somewhere, and by the time we were done, you were at the altar.”  
  
Henry stops and tilts his head, considering. “Maybe it’s better if I show you,” he says, leading them to a small counter where catalogs and display books are arranged. “Look.”  
  
There’s a photo album, packed with pictures of happy couples who have apparently felt the need to tie the knot in a missile silo, for some incomprehensible reason. The Doctor’s stomach roils as Henry flips through the pages until he gets to the end, to a picture of two couples standing at the altar.  
  
The Doctor is wearing an ill-fitting fireman’s uniform, complete with hat. The pants are too short and the jacket’s far too broad for his skinny frame. Rose is beside him in a miniscule spangly dress, on her tip-toes and kissing his cheek, and he’s glassy-eyed and beaming at the camera.  
  
The second couple at the altar is Donna, in the wedding dress she’s wearing now, in the arms of a stranger. Literally in his arms — he’s got her lifted up, as though he’s prepared to carry her over a threshold. He’s burly, with ears that stick out and curly hair.  
  
The Doctor makes a stuttering noise. “You mean — we didn’t — we weren’t — it wasn’t the two of us that got married?” he finally squeaks at Donna. For the first time since he woke up in a cheap buffet this morning, the Doctor feels like he can breathe. Matter of fact, he’s full of helium, ready to float right up into the sky. A giddy, high-pitched giggle escapes him before he can get a lid on it.  
  
“Who the bloody hell is that?” Donna moans, picking up the album like she wants to rip it in half.  
  
“Let me see, I have it written down right here,” Henry says, peering at a ledger on the counter. “Looks like his name is Lee McAvoy. He didn’t seem to mind, all that talk about transferring the marriage, just went along with the whole scheme, even though I kept telling you it couldn’t legally be done. So you brought the license with you this time, to make everything official for each couple?”  
  
Donna staggers back a few paces, putting her hand over her mouth. She’s gone pale as a sheet, and she looks like she might sick up at any moment.  
  
“Ahhh, we seem to have misplaced all our papers. Don’t suppose I left my wallet here, by any chance?” the Doctor asks.  
  
Henry frowns, his mustache drooping even further. “You four bolted right after the vows, before I could change out of my Elvis costume. You never paid for the ceremony, either.” He squints at the Doctor. “I’ll call the police and have you locked right up, don’t think I won’t. The deluxe double ceremony is twelve hundred bucks, and I’m not letting you go without paying this time.”  
  
“I’m going to be sick,” Donna moans behind him. “McAvoy. I married an Irishman. My mum’s going to have a heart attack.”  
  
The Doctor is quite certain that Sylvia Noble will probably keel right over at the fact that Donna went and married a stranger before Donna even gets around to telling her the bloke’s name, but he has already decided he’s going to be in another country when that conversation takes place. Jackie Tyler is one thing, Sylvia Noble is another beast entirely.  
  
“Oh no, ma’am, he wasn’t Irish. He was a red-blooded American,” Henry informs her cheerfully.  
  
“That’s even worse,” Donna amends bleakly. “Mum’s going to scream till I’m deaf, kill me, and then have a heart attack.”   
  
“We haven’t got any licenses, and I haven’t got any money,” the Doctor says, reaching into his trouser pockets and pulling out the lining to emphasize his point. The black velvet ring box clatters to the concrete floor.  
  
“Well, whether you’ve got licenses and the marriages are legal or not, you still gotta pay. That sure was a pretty piece of jewelry you let Mr. McAvoy borrow for his nuptuals,” Henry says, a glint in his eye. “I suppose that might cover the cost.”  
  
“No no no no no,” the Doctor blurts, sweeping the ring box off the floor, “that ring would cover the nuptuals and probably buy this entire missile silo to boot. If you’d just let me make a phone call to my bank, I could maybe arrange –”  
  
“You aren’t calling the Bank of Merry Old England from my line!” Henry lets out a put-upon sigh, his barrel-like chest heaving dramatically. “All right, all right. I don’t normally do this, but I suppose I can accept her casino chips.” He looks past the Doctor, at Donna.  
  
“My what?” Donna’s voice is startlingly soft. The Doctor would expect her to be shouting her head off right now, but she’s worryingly subdued.  
  
“The casino chips you had me sew into the hem of that wedding dress during your fitting,” Henry says. “That’s what.”  
  
~~~~~  
  
By the time Rose and Jack get to the Golden Nugget, the Doctor is gone. The attendant at the taxi stand helpfully informs them that the Doctor got into a cab with a shouty woman in a wedding dress, but he has no idea where they went.  
  
“The Doctor’s alive, and Donna’s with him. Things are looking better by the minute,” Jack says.  
  
They step into the lobby for a moment, because Jack needs to use the facilities. They hardly make it two steps in before the hotel manager spots them from the front desk and makes a beeline in their direction.  
  
“Miss Wipplesmythe, Mr. Hind! What a pleasure to see you again this morning!”  
  
“Mr. Hind?” Jack’s eyebrows climb halfway up his forehead.  
  
A look of faux-contrition crosses the manager’s face. “Apologies, sir, I know you asked me to call you Herbie.” He shifts his attention toward Rose. “I have your order ready, Miss Wipplesmythe. It was quite outside the scope of things we provide for our clientele, but we obviously made an exception in your case.”  
  
The manger turns toward a bellhop. “Trevor, please bring in Miss Wipplesmythe’s new…friend.”  
  
Trevor nods and exits through a door behind the bell desk, and Rose watches until it’s closed once more.  
  
Friend? Friend? She didn’t – she couldn’t, she wouldn’t have ordered an…an…escort, right?   
  
Jack has apparently arrived at the same conclusion, grinning broadly and face turning red with the effort of keeping his laughter back.  
  
“Oh, I hope he’s pretty,” Jack says. “Oooh, or she! It is Vegas, after all.”  
  
The hotel manager smiles politely. “I assure you both, she’s quite pretty.”  
  
Rose’s body goes hot, her stomach twisting as her legs begin to wobble. Jack reaches out a hand to steady her without looking, both of them with their eyes trained forward, on the door Trevor disappeared through.  
  
It opens far too quickly for Rose’s liking and Trevor files out. Rose cranes her neck, trying to get a good look, but there’s no one beside him, and everything from his chest down is hidden by the bell desk.   
  
A short escort, then? Was that what made it so challenging?   
  
Before she can follow the thought any further, Trevor’s out from behind the desk, a bright pink leash in his hand that Rose follows down to –  
  
A dog?   
  
She had a hotel get her a dog?  
  
Oh my god.  
  
The manager takes the leash from Trevor, handing it over to Rose. She receives it numbly, staring at the small, bow-wearing Yorkshire Terrier panting happily at her feet.  
  
“Miss Wipplesmythe, I’d like you to meet Rose.”  
  
Jack’s laughter echoes through the lobby, several patrons turning to stare as Rose-the-Dog yaps in reply.   
  
“I thought it was fitting, actually,” the manager says. “An English Rose. She’s actually from there, her owner brought her over last year, but sadly passed away. The shelter assured me her that all her vaccinations have remained up to date, and since her passport was issued inside the EU, she’s all set to return home, with you!”  
  
The dog has stopped yapping and begun sniffing Rose’s shoes, her wet nose pulling away a layer of glitter, but Jack is still laughing, bending down to pet her.  
  
“Oh, aren’t you a pretty girl, Rose? And such a pretty name!” Jack grins up at the human Rose, unrestrained glee painted across his face.   
  
Rose looks at the leash in her hand and back to the hotel manager. “And that’s it? This dog is just…mine now?”  
  
The bloke nods. “Yep, we’ve taken care of everything. Even arranged boarding for her on the same flight you’re on this evening. You’re still on the 6 o’clock, right?”  
  
Oh, shit. She is.They are. They’re on a 6 o’clock flight, to be in home in time for Joanie’s first birthday party tomorrow. The party her mum has been planning for months. The party they can’t possibly miss, unless they want to hear about it every day for the rest of their lives.   
  
She glances down at her watch. In nine hours they have to be on a plane, and she doesn’t even know where the Doctor is.   
  
Fucking brilliant.   
  
“We are, thanks,” she tells the manager.   
  
“Will there be anything else, Miss Wipplesmythe?”  
  
Rose shakes her head. “No, that’ll be all. Jac–Herbie,” Rose says, pulling him up by the hair for good measure. “We have to go.”  
  
He rocks to his feet and Rose leads the dog by the leash, and Jack by the arm, back out to the valet.  
  
“Wait, wait! Miss Wipplesmythe, did you want to cash out your winnings from last night?” the manager calls after them.  
  
Rose stops. “My winnings?”  
  
“The casino owner contacted me personally, considering the amount you won, and wanted to make sure I tied up any loose ends before you left town, y’see.”  
  
“Um. Yes. We’re staying at the MGM Grand, can you have a check delivered before three this afternoon?” Rose says, making things up as she goes along. She’s not sure if casinos do that sort of thing, much less the amount she won, or what sort of gambling she did last night, or whether she’d ever be able to cash a check made out to someone named Wipplesmythe, anyway.  
  
“Of course! Please do consider staying with us next time, Miss Wipplesmythe. We’re always thrilled to have members of the royal family at our establishment!” The manager beams at her before stepping back inside.  
  
“Your majesty,” Jack chortles, opening the door of the truck for her.  
  
“You told them your name was Herbie Hind?” Rose snaps as she picks up the little dog and plops it onto the bench seat beside her in the truck. “What are you, twelve?”  
  
“I wasn’t the one who ordered a dog to-go,Dame Wipplesmythe,” he retorts, picking up the little brown and black bundle of fur and cuddling it in his arms. It makes a small yelping noise and nestles into him. “No,” he croons at it, “I wouldn’t do something that irresponsible, would I? Not when I know my baby daddy is allergic to dogs. Isn’t that right, Rosie?” He scratches her tiny head and she closes her eyes.  
  
Rose leans forward, resting her forehead against the steering wheel and sighing deeply. “All of this is completely brilliant. Where exactly are we supposed to go now?”  
  
Jack reaches into his pocket and checks his mobile. “No word from Mickey and Martha yet.”  
  
“Right, we can’t very well return this red monstrosity to the rental car company tonight. Let’s go visit some firemen, shall we? See if we can trade in their truck for our car. Then we can touch base with Martha and Mickey, and if they haven’t found the Doctor and Donna by then, maybe they’ll have magically turned up back at the hotel.”  
  
As soon as the truck engine roars to life, Rose-the-dog leaps out of Jack’s arms and begins yapping angrily at the dashboard. Jack is on his phone, looking up “Battalion Chief Canton Delaware,” when Rose’s mobile buzzes.  
  
“Hi mum,” she answers.  
  
The screech on the other end of the phone is more ear-splitting than the yapping dog. Jackie has obviously been crying. “Rose Marion Tyler! How could you!? You don’t even bother to call and tell your own mother, I had to find out about it on the entertainment news! How could you get married in Vegas, of all places — without me there — without a proper dress or reception or minister. Elvis.Elvis. How could you do this to me, Roooose?” After that, the woman on the other end of the line dissolves into incoherent sobs.  
  
~~~~~  
  
As soon as the Doctor and Donna step outside the Love Bunker and into the glaring Nevada sunlight, Donna comes to a stop. The Doctor doesn’t notice at first — he’s practically floating on a cloud, everything is brilliant — he’s not accidentally married to the wrong woman, as a matter of fact he’s married to the right one (with one tiny legal hitch, but maybe there’s time to fix that before they leave town). He can’t remember the entire thing, but the point is that they don’t have to bother with the hassle of a wedding, it’s already done!  
  
Now he and Rose can just get back to the business of being together, and that formality’s taken care of! No mess, no bother, no tuxedo or toasts!  
  
This is the happiest accident of his life, with the possible exception of the time a banana fell into the frying pan when he was making a toasted peanut butter and honey sandwich.  
  
He’s nearly to the waiting cab when he realizes Donna isn’t beside him. She’s leaning against the concrete wall of the Love Bunker, taking shallow breaths.  
  
“Donna?” Waving toward the cabbie to give them a moment, he returns to her. “Donna are you all right?”  
  
“Why would I do something like that?” Donna says, her face pinched in worry and embarrassment. “Why would I marry a bloke I don’t know? I’m not that sort of person.” She pauses, frowns. “Am I?”  
  
“None of us were in our right minds last night,” the Doctor says. “And the marriage wasn’t legal, you aren’t his wife.”  
  
“That’s not the point! You managed to stagger to the altar with the right woman! Shouldn’t I have been up there with … with Jack or something?” she says, grabbing the front of his shirt and shaking him a little.  
  
He takes her hands, delicately pulling them away and holding them. “I don’t think anyone who knows Jack Harkness would mistake him for the marrying kind, Donna.”  
  
“Well no one would’ve mistaken you for the marrying kind, either, not before Rose Tyler came along,” Donna retorts. “I’m not even that upset about not marrying Jack. I don’t know that I’d want to marry him. But Lee McAvoy? I might as well have married Bozo the Clown or Santa, for all I know about him. What does that say about me?”  
  
There’s a thin thread of vulnerability running through the question and, though it was quite possibly rhetorical, the Doctor drops their usual act.  
  
“Nothing, Donna. It says absolutely nothing about you.”  
  
She glances up at him and there’s a flicker of appreciation in her eyes. He may not love Donna the same way he loves Rose, but it’s love all the same.  
  
“Except, perhaps, that you can’t hold your liquor,” he adds, squeezing her hands before releasing them and teasing a small smile out of her.  
  
It really is remarkable though, the damage they’ve been able to do with just a few bottles of champagne, and he’s beginning to suspect that there’s more to the story, when Henry comes rushing out the door beside them.  
  
“Oh, good, you haven’t left again yet,” he says. “I meant to give you this.” He hands the Doctor a mobile phone. “I think it’s your driver’s. He’s not from any of the car services in town, so I thought maybe you’d brought him with you?”  
  
The Doctor glances at the phone, anger burning through his chest. It’s a Toclafane. They’d only just made the jump from music players to phones last year, and though the Master doesn’t seem to be as much of the public face of the company as he used to be, he still maintains a controlling interest.  
  
The Doctor had picked up one of the phones for a laugh one Saturday a few months back, dismantling it just to poke at the guts, and it hadn’t looked anything like this.  
  
No, this is clearly a newer model, one that hasn’t been released to market yet, one that only someone inside the company would have access to.  
  
He pushes through the headache still echoing dully in his skull, trying to remember the pictures from the ceremony that Henry had shown them. The driver was in the background of some of them, and although the Doctor didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t mean anything. The Master is world class at getting other people’s hands dirty.  
  
The Doctor thanks Henry and he ducks back inside the building.  
  
Donna waits for the door to close again before turning back to the Doctor. “What is it? You’ve got that look on, your ‘angrily thinking’ look.”  
  
The Doctor extends the phone, so Donna can see. “It’s a Toclafane. A prototype Toclafane.”  
  
Donna shrugs. “The old ones are supposed to be rubbish.”  
  
The anger in the Doctor’s chest is reaching a roar, everything hot and sparking, and he forces himself to take a breath before addressing Donna.  
  
“You’re right,” he says. “They are rubbish. Especially when you consider the man responsible for their manufacture.”  
  
There’s a thump on his arm as Donna shoves at him, eyes wide. “You have got to be kidding! No! Him?The Master’s the reason I married an American?”  
  
The Doctor tilts his head back and forth a few times. “Well-ll, sort of.”  
  
Donna’s face pales. “Oh god, do you think he’s in on it? This Lee McAvoy?”  
  
The Doctor’s hand finds Donna’s shoulder. “Even if he is, Donna, you couldn’t have known.” He shifts to guide Donna toward the car.  
  
The cabbie’s got his hand extended as soon as they’re seated.  
  
“I’m sorry, mate,” the Doctor says. “It wasn’t in there, but if you take us back to the MGM Grand, someone there can pay you your $300.”  
  
The driver glowers at him, but seems to consider his options, and thankfully decide against abandoning them with the coyotes. “All right, last trip. And it’s $500 now, got it?”  
  
The Doctor nods absent-mindedly, eyes already retrained on the phone in his hand. “$500, yep, got it.”  
  
As the car pulls back onto the road, the Doctor waves the phone around the backseat, trying to get it to pick up a signal.  
  
They’ve been driving for ten mintues when he finally gets a few bars’ worth. Flipping to the phone’s call log, he finds the number dialed most recently. It’s got a 702 area code, which means it’s local and their most promising lead right now.  
  
Tapping at the screen before lifting the phone to his ear, the Doctor waits for the call to connect.  
  
After scarcely one ring, someone picks up.  
  
“You sodding moron, I have been calling your line for hours, my mobile’s nearly dead! If you don’t get here and get me out of the trunk of this car right now, you fucking worthless sonofabitch, I will make it my personal mission to ensure that you and every last member of your fucking family are miserable for the rest of their natural fucking lives. I will have it written into my will, that my entire fucking estate be dedicated to the purpose of ensuring your utter despair until your last breath.” The ferocious tirade pauses for a microsecond. “Are you just going to mouth-breathe over there, or do you have something to say, you fucking goon?”  
  
“Hello, Master,” the Doctor says, squeezing the phone so hard the plastic creaks in his ear.  
  
~~~~~  
  
“Rose. Rose, please just say something.”  
  
Rose is gripping the steering wheel so tightly, her knuckles have turned white and her palms gone numb.  
  
“I can hear you grinding your teeth over there, I know your jaw is working. What’s happening? What was that call about? It sounded like Jackie, and she was yelling — is everyone okay in London?”  
  
Jack seems sincerely concerned, so much so that he’s got Rose-the-Dog in one arm, and he’s delicately holding her little yappy mouth shut with the opposite hand.  
  
Rose’s lips move a few times and she swallows, her throat dry. “Apparently we … ah, that is to say, the Doctor and I … visited a wedding chapel last night. And it’s front-page entertainment news all over Europe,” she says through her teeth. Her face and shoulders are flushed hot, her fingers and toes ice cold, and she’s so gobsmacked and furious that she’s actually feeling lightheaded. Without warning, she makes a hard right, throwing Jack and Rose-the-Dog across the bench seat as the truck jumps the curb and rumbles to a stop in the parking area of a gas station.  
  
Throwing the vehicle into park, she tips her head back and takes a few deep breaths, trying to slow down her racing heart and her pounding blood. That headache from this morning is still throbbing along like a train in the background, and it’s getting stronger again by the minute.  
  
“You and the Doctor … you mean, you and him are …”  
  
“Mum said there are pictures and video and everything,” Rose says.  
  
“Oh.” Jack hesitantly reaches over to pat her on the shoulder. “Mazel tov?”  
  
“I don’t even remember it. Mum says I was wearing an exotic dancer’s outfit, and we were in a cave or something, and Elvis officiated. I married the Doctor, and I can’t even remember saying ‘I do.’ That’s — that’s one of the most important decisions a person can make in their lifetime, committing themselves to someone else until death do they part, and … I don’t remember making that promise.”  
  
The silence that settles over the cab of the truck is broken by a round of furious yapping when Rose-the-Dog spots a squirrel in the little palm tree just outside the window. Jack flinches, hurrying to hush her, and Rose closes her eyes.  
  
“I can drive,” Jack finally says. “We’re only a block from the fire station, anyway. Let’s return the truck and find our rental car, then we’ll find the Doctor and sort all this out.”  
  
Jack hops out of the truck and walks around while Rose scoots over into the passenger seat.  
  
The fire station is a big, boxy building with large glass garage doors. Fire trucks and emergency command vehicles gleam inside the station, mercifully quiet — no crises to deal with at the moment, apparently. Which means that no one’s out on a call; all the firemen are inside, too. Rose and Jack crack the windows in the truck and leave Rose-the-Dog to wait while they go in the front, to the main office.  
  
A burly man sits behind the front desk, feet propped up on a stack of papers. He’s wearing jeans and a tight blue t-shirt with the fire department crest on it. Plopping his feet onto the ground as soon as he spots them, he clears his throat and tries to tidy up the papers on the desk, as though he’s embarrassed they caught him lounging.  
  
“C-c-c-can I help you folks?” he stutters, radiating confidence and ease.  
  
“Hi, I’m Jack Harkness, and we’re looking for Chief Canton Delaware,” Jack says.  
  
“You’re in l-l-l-l-luck, she’s in the station tod-d-d-day,” the man says, hopping to his feet. He sticks his head through an open door and shouts back into the depths of the station: “Chief D-d-d-delaware, some people are here to see you!”  
  
“Be right there, Lee!” a voice replies.  
  
“Either of you want a m-m-m-magazine? She might be a minute,” Lee says, gesturing to a few chairs in the tiny waiting area.  
  
Rose collapses into a seat, Jack sliding into the one next to her as Lee resumes his place behind the desk.   
  
“You gonna keep wearing those indoors?” Jack raises a finger to her face and the sunglasses she’d forgotten she had on.   
  
It doesn’t seem like a terrible idea, and might keep her headache at bay, but it also seems impolite, and since they’ve somehow ended up with this bloke’s truck, she figures a little courtesy can’t hurt.   
  
She pushes the sunglasses up, using them like a headband to hold back the hair that keeps tangling in her face.  
  
“Oh…oh,” Lee’s voice sounds alarmed and Rose looks up, expecting to see him checking some sort of fire alert or something, but he’s staring right at her.   
  
“You’re…you’re Rose Tyler,” Lee says.   
  
Rose tries to stifle the sigh threatening to escape. Terrific, she’s been recognized. Well, maybe they can use this to their advantage, get a little leniency on the whole abducted vehicle thing.   
  
“I am,” she confirms, putting on her brightest smile.   
  
“Is the D-D-Doctor with you?” Lee cranes his neck, trying to get a view at the door and any other rock stars that might be waiting behind it.   
  
“No, he’s…he’s busy,” Rose says and Jack raises his eyebrows.  
  
“Well, you’ll p-p-probably see him, r-right?” Lee’s reaching for something in his desk, and Rose figures it’s a CD or something else he wants autographed.   
  
Which is why it takes her by complete surprise when Lee takes out the Doctor’s wallet.   
  
“C-c-can you give this back to him?”  
  
Rose is up off her feet faster than head – or her stomach – would like, darting the short distance to Lee’s desk to take the wallet from him.  
  
“Where did you get this?” She’s trying very, very, very hard to keep calm.   
  
Lee shrugs. “I d-d-don’t know. I woke up this morning on one of the ships in front of Treasure Island. It was in my p-p-pocket.”  
  
Jack joins them at the desk, hands in his pockets. “And that’s normal for fireman here? Go on a bender and come into work the next day?”  
  
A blush takes over Lee’s cheeks and he glances down, looking ashamed. “N-n-no. I was at the Bellagio, had some friends in town. I was only going to be out for a little bit, but I met a w-w-woman.”  
  
Jack nods sympathetically, apparently picking up the same harmless vibe Rose is receiving from this bloke. “Ain’t that always the way?”  
  
Lee smiles a little. “She was v-very pretty, and she offered me a drink. Th-th-that’s the last thing I remember.”  
  
Rose leans forward, spinning the Doctor’s wallet on the desk top. “This woman, do you remember what she looked like?”  
  
Lee nods. “R-r-red hair,” he says. “She was British, like you.”  
  
Next to Rose, Jack stands up straighter, eyes now fixed on Lee. Rose puts a calming hand on his arm before reaching for her mobile. She thumbs to a picture of Donna.  
  
“Lee, did she look like this?” Rose shows him the phone.  
  
“Yes!” Lee seems pleased, delighted even. “You know her? I thought I might n-n-never see her again.”  
  
Rose nods. “We do, she’s our friend.”  
  
Before she can continue, a petite black woman with a sleeve of tattoos emerges from the door behind Lee.   
  
“Chief D-D-Delaware,” Lee says, sitting up straighter.


	3. Chapter 3

  
~~~~~

The silence on the other end of the Doctor’s call is deafening. A soft shuffling sound breaks it, finally, like the Master is rearranging himself — apparently locked inside the boot of a car somewhere.

“How’d you get this phone?” the Master asks, his tone cold and measured.

“Found it in America, of all places. Didn’t know Toclafane was releasing its prototype tech to the Yanks.”

“Drop the sarcasm.”

“This is your doing,” the Doctor snaps. “All of it. The memory loss, the wild antics, you had one of your hired monkeys pretend to be our driver and escort us around town, pushing us exactly where you wanted us to go, right into the most compromising situations you could manage. What was it? Rufis in the champagne?”  
The Master’s tone is dripping with satisfaction. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“To what end? Humiliation? I suppose that would be enough for you, wouldn’t it. Did you accidentally slip one into your own drink? Is that how you ended up crammed in the boot of a car, like luggage?”

“It a load of bollocks, you know, that shtick about what happens in Vegas staying in Vegas. It’s just a line to lure the feckless tourists. Everything comes out in the end, Doctor — every. last. career-ending. detail.”

“Where are you,” the Doctor grits through his teeth. Donna reaches over, grasping his hand, and he gratefully folds his fingers with hers. The touch is a lifeline, tying him down to earth so he doesn’t float right off into the roiling infinity of fury and the need for revenge he’s feeling right now.

“Enjoy the rest of your Vegas vacation,” the Master replies.

“It’s summertime in the desert, and you’re locked in a metal box. Where are you?”

“Your concern is touching. Don’t worry yourself, Doctor. I’ve got everything under control.” The line goes dead.

The Doctor growls, pulling back the hand holding the mobile. Donna snatches it from him before he can pitch it out the window.

“We need that,” Donna says, her tone gentle. “We can call Rose. And maybe the police.”

Letting out a long breath, his throat burning, the Doctor nods and squeezes her hand. They’re nearly back to the city now, heading to the hotel. Donna’s scrolling through the mobile’s photo album, and from the alternating looks of shock and dismay flitting across her face, the Doctor is fairly certain he doesn’t want to see any of it.

A few seconds later, she’s dialing a number. “Rose, it’s Donna. Where are you? We’ve lost our mobiles, call us back on this line when you get this message.”

Has Rose lost her mobile, too?

“I’ll try Jack, maybe they’re together.” Donna dials again, and apparently gets an answer this time.

“Thank heavens, Rose is with you! No, we’re fine, we’re all right. Where are you now? A fire station?” Donna shoots the Doctor a sideways look, eyebrows arching as she mouths the words fireman’s uniform at him. “What’s the address, we’ll meet you there.”

The cab driver clears his throat loudly.

“By the way, how much cash do you have on you?” Donna mutters into the mobile. She gives the driver a smile and a thumbs-up sign before disconnecting the call. Then she leans over and murmurs into the Doctor’s ear, “Jack hasn’t got a dime.”

~~~~~

Chief Delaware grins broadly at Jack and Rose. “You kept your word! I was wondering, after that stunt in the VIP area at Pure last night, if they let you out alive. Glad to see you survived!”

She steps around the desk and pulls Jack into an enthusiastic hug. Jack stares at Rose over her shoulder, wide-eyed and confused.

Rose only has time to shrug before Chief Delaware is releasing Jack and pulling Rose herself into an equally enthusiastic hug.

“I’m sorry, Chief Delaware,” Rose says when she’s free, before being corrected to call the chief ‘Canton.’

“I’m sorry,Canton, but I – we – don’t actually remember Pure. That’s part of the reason we’re here.”

Canton smiles knowingly. “I was wondering if that was gonna happen. You guys were pretty gone at the club. Was it the yard long margaritas? Those things are always knocking the tourists on their asses – you have to hydrate in this weather.”

There was an empty yard-long margarita container in the trashed hotel suite this morning, but something tells Rose that’s not what did it, before she can say as much, Canton’s speaking again.

“Where are your friends at? I wanted to see how the new ink looks in the light of day.” She taps at her tattooed arm and Rose feels a tiny wave of relief – they’re getting more pieces of the puzzle by the second, but she’s not entirely sure she’s going to like the picture it makes. And she’s trying very,very hard not to think of the piece where she was apparently a bride.

“They’re back there, back at the shop, actually,” Rose says. “Jack, did you want to give them a call? Tell them where we are? Canton, is there some place we can talk?”

Canton nods and gestures them past Lee’s desk, waiting for them to file through.

Jack turns the phone away from his ear briefly. “Mr. Donna, you better come, too,” he says to Lee.

Lee follows and they settle in Canton’s office. Rose isn’t still entirely in control of her limbs, everything sluggish and a half-step slower than she means it to be, and she knocks a picture frame from Canton’s desk.

With an apology, she picks it up and sets it back in its place.

“That’s my dad,” Canton says, turning the picture so Rose and Jack can see. The bloke is in a crisp suit, with dark hair and sideburns, and he’s standing in the middle of the Oval Office. “He was Canton, too. And he’s how I knew I could trust you guys last night.”

Rose’s eyebrows raise. “Your dad saw…whatever it is was we did last night?”

Canton laughs. “No, no, although he’d probably have been up for it. He worked with the Doctor briefly on his first tour, when he stopped in DC. Always said he was a good guy. Completely crazy,” she adds, “but a good guy.”

Jack grins. “That sounds like the Doctor.”

Canton shifts the picture back to its original position. “Anyway, when Lee called and said he was out with you, I couldn’t turn down the offer. Good thing I didn’t, or I’d have missed the show of a lifetime.”

Rose’s cheeks flush, remembering the photo of herself on the stripper pole, trying in vain to remember if it looked like she was wearing knickers.

“Couldn’t believe the Doctor could sing in the shape he was in,” Canton adds.

Relief floods Rose’s chest. “What did he sing?”

Canton looks surprised. “You don’t remember? It was on that little stage at Pure. Oooh, the ass on that boy. You are a lucky woman. Although…” she makes a show of peering at Rose, “…he’s a lucky man, too.”

Jack is smiling in his chair, eyes lit up, and it’s immediately apparent why Canton’s so fond of Jack.

“You know what? It’s better if I just show you.” Canton clicks at her mouse, typing at the keyboard briefly before shifting the monitor so Rose and Jack can see.

She’s brought up a YouTube video – “The Doctor Revisits the LEATHER Album!!!!” – and Rose watches as it begins to play.

The camera is focused shakily on an empty space at the front of the club, the crowd roaring in the background and then, sauntering on stage, the Doctor appears.

Shirtless, and in leather trousers.

“Is he wearing eyeliner?” Jack’s voice is equal parts curious and impressed. Rose elbows him to shut up as the Doctor calms the crowd and begins to speak.

“Hello, Las Vegas!” he shouts, cuing the DJ, and then launching into a drunken, respectably Elvis-y version of ‘A Little Less Conversation.’

His hips start working in a motion Rose has always been fond of, made all the more entrancing by the way the leather trousers are clinging tight and low on his body, by the sheen of sweat on his chest, all smooth skin and inviting angles.

The crowd is loving it, but it’s like the Doctor doesn’t even see them, he’s staring off to the left at something, eyes hungry and transfixed even as his hips are swiveling, and the camera notices at the same time Rose does, panning over to reveal – oh god.

There she is, on the computer screen, looking back at the Doctor every bit as wantonly. She’s shouting and dancing and clearly extremely drunk.

“I think that’s enough,” Rose says, turning away, but then undermining herself by sneaking another glance at the screen. Those leather trousers, though, she’s got to spare a thought for those. And how she hopes they found their way into his suitcase back at the hotel.

“I don’t think it is,” Jack says. “It is definitely,definitely not enough.” He’s staring at the computer like it’s Santa Claus, and Rose is almost tempted to join him again when Canton finally shows a little mercy and closes the window.

“After that,” Canton says. “You really took the song’s, um, message to heart. Went at it right at your table. I’m actually surprised the Doctor didn’t hurt himself, after that bottle broke.”

A familiar voice sounds from behind them.

“Nah,” it says. “I’m tougher than that.”

Rose turns to see the Doctor leaning against the doorframe, looking tired and rumpled and finally,thankfully right where she needs him to be.

Lee jerks up from where he’s been leaning against the wall, his eyes clapped on Donna. He opens his mouth and lets out a long series of d sounds, apparently so overcome he can’t get her name out.

“You!” Donna squeaks at him. The crimson starts in her cheeks and quickly radiates from her hairline to her chest.

Lee stops trying to talk and simply nods instead, his own face reddening to match Donna’s.

Rose thinks she has an inkling of how they both feel. Even though she’s spent the day chasing down the Doctor, now that he’s finally here, her stomach is fluttering with embarrassment and nerves and frustration, the sensation coming right up her esophagus and lodging in her chest, squeezing out all her breath. It’s disconcerting, unsettling; she has no idea how to process this strange morass of emotions, and they default right into anger.

She’s been with the Doctor for years, borne his daughter, apparently nearly shagged him on a table at a dance club last night — and all she can think of at the moment is the fact that they stood up in a chapel of some sort and became husband and wife last night.

And she’d doesn’t remember it.

Does he remember? Does he know? Why isn’t he saying anything? Why is he just standing there, one hand crammed into his pocket, apparently balled up in a fist, and staring at her with his mouth open like a fish?

Lee has maneuvered around the relatively small, crowded office and somehow pulled a spare chair from the corner, offering it to Donna. Donna, who is wearing a bedraggled wedding dress with the hem ripped out and dragging the floor, her hair falling down from a fancy up-do, and a pair of neon pink trainers on her feet.

She huffs at him, frowning as though she’s considering whether to accept the gesture, when Jack sweeps across the room in a flurry of movement and noise. “Donna, you’re radiant! Isn’t that what they say about women in wedding dresses? Or is that pregnant ladies?” He gathers her up into his arms in a broad, territory-asserting gesture. “Whichever it is, you’re beautiful. I’ve missed you, I’m so relieved you’re all right!”

“Get off, get off!” Donna says, pushing him away. “All of you, everybody just get off! How can anybody breathe in here, you all smell like donkeys and cigarettes and every last one of you look like death warmed over!”

She stomps out of the room, still muttering about rank farm animals.

Rose stands up with an apologetic look toward Canton. “I think we’ve all had a stressful morning. Would you mind exchanging your truck for our rental car, while Lee sorts out — whatever else needs to be sorted out with the Doctor and Jack?”

“Sure,” Canton replies carefully, shooting Lee a stern look. Lee clears his throat and shuffles his feet, nodding at whatever she’s silently communicated.

Arms crossed, Rose follows Canton out of the room. As she brushes by the still dumbstruck Doctor, she hisses at him, “You’d better not bollocks this up, too.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows her anger is probably misplaced, but right now all she wants to do is shout and howl at him for … everything. Even the things that aren’t his fault.

The two of them catch up with Donna just down the hall. She’s blinking back tears, cursing under her breath and tugging at her dress like it’s suffocating her.

Rose takes her hand and says, “I won’t leave your side until we get this all sorted.” With a grateful nod and a shaky sigh, Donna pulls her closer and links their arms together.

“I’ll pull your car around front, if you’d like,” Canton says, stopping by the front desk to pick up a set of keys.

“Thanks.”

A minute later, their rental BMW is parked alongside the enormous red truck in the parking lot. When Canton steps out of the driver’s side door, she’s frowning.

“I think something’s loose in the trunk,” she says. “There’s a rattling noise.”

“Hold on, that’s not a rattle.” Donna steps toward the back of the car, pulling Rose along. She definitely doesn’t want to let go. There is a distinct thumping noise coming from the trunk that has nothing to do with the quiet purr of the engine up front. Donna calls to Canton, “Pop open the boot, would you?”

~~~~~

The silence in the fire chief’s office is thick and heavy. Jack and Lee are staring at each other, sizing each other up.

“Is there something I ought to know?” Jack asks, and the Doctor isn’t sure whether he’s the one being asked, but he figures it’d be better if he answered.

“There are lots of things you ought to know, Jack. You ought to know that yellow isn’t your color, that too many olives give you a stomach ache, that –”

“Doctor.”

Well, it was worth a shot.

“There was a wedding last night,” the Doctor says.

Jack nods. “Yeah, I know about that. Rose doesn’t seem too pleased about it actually; I think you’re in for it, buddy.”

It’s not exactly what the Doctor wanted to hear – is, in fact, pretty much the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He’d thought they were ready for that, were headed toward it, were – to borrow a phrase from Jackie Tyler – finally going to make honest men and women of each other, were…well, he’d thought a lot of things, and the ring in his pocket has never seemed heavier.

What Jack said though, it does explain the lack of a ‘hooray-you’re-alive’ hug. Hell, he didn’t even get the ‘hooray-you’re-alive’ smile.

No, the ‘I-might-vomit-or-yell’ grimace was there instead, and that’s one of his least favorites, but if he’s going to deal with that, he’s got to deal with this first, and he continues.

“It was a double wedding. Not exactly legally binding, but Mr. McAvoy here apparently stood up in front of a startling amount of military paraphernalia, and pledged to spend his life with Donna.”

Lee lets out a squeaky whimper, and, boy, does the Doctor know that feeling. Jack’s face is thunderous, and the Doctor knows that one, too – recently, even, with how all this came about.

“It was the Master,” the Doctor says. “He drugged us all, looking to embarrass me, I expect. As if I couldn’t do that all on my own.”

Jack’s eyes are trained on Lee, but he’s clearly speaking to the Doctor. “And where is the Master now?”

The Doctor sighs, the hand in his pocket turning the ring box over and over. He’d really rather deal with that, withRose, first, but as usual, the Master has taken something and made it all about himself. They’ve got to get this sorted, and then –then they’ll figure themselves out.

“He’s in the boot of a car somewhere,” the Doctor says. “Can’t be too far, I imagine. He’s had some lackeys involved in all of this, but you know him – always preferring the live show over the broadcast.”

Lee clears his throat, eyes fixing hard on Jack’s for a moment, before turning to the Doctor.

“W-w-weren’t they going to get a car?” Lee raises his hand toward the door the women had gone through.

Oh, fuck.

The Doctor’s out of the office in an instant, Jack and Lee on his heels as they tear through the fire station and out the front door.

He nearly collides with Canton as she stands a few feet away from their rental car, Donna and Rose peering at the boot curiously.

“There’s someone in there,” Donna says when she catches sight of them.

“It’s the Master,” Jack tells her, sweeping up next to her with a glare at Lee. Donna’s not having it though, and joins the Doctor where he’s now running a finger over the latch to the boot.

“Is it really?” Rose is staring at him warily.

“Let’s find out,” the Doctor says, and raps his knuckles over the boot four times in rapid succession. In happier times, well, different times, it’s how they’d identify each other, sneaking around the school in the dark of night. Now it only serves to incense the Master.

“Fuck you,” a voice snarls from inside the boot.

“Yeah, it’s him,” the Doctor says.

Without waiting — best to pull the plaster off quickly — the Doctor pushes the latch and steps back, giving the rear of the car wide berth. The boot opens and sure enough, the Master is crammed inside. He’s wearing a formerly sharp, now exceedingly rumpled black suit.

He sits up with an impressive amount of dignity and coordination, for a man who’s been a human sardine for who knows how long, and surveys the crowd around him coldly.

He’s in the process of straightening his cuffs when his gaze sweeps across Lee, standing beside Rose. His calm façade cracks like brittle sugar. He’s out of the boot in a stunning leap, except his legs wobble when they meet the pavement, his aggressive swagger marred by the fact that he has to hold onto the car to keep from falling down.

“I want your badge number,” he growls at the confused fireman, but the Doctor catches a note of something false in the sentiment, like a cornered animal overcompensating for his fear. The Master’s gaze is certainly steady enough, even as he finally finds his footing and lets go of the car to finish straightening his cuffs, advancing on Lee. “I’ll have you up on charges for assault and kidnapping. I have dozens of solicitors that will be brought to bear in ending your career and ruining your finances. I’ll have you paying me damages until you’ve gone gray and you can’t even see to sign the cheques any longer.”

Lee is frowning, confused, but doesn’t back up at the Master’s advance. “I think you’ve m-m-mistaken me for —”

“No, no m-m-mistake,” the Master mocks, pitching his faux-stutter high and coming to stand toe-to-toe with the taller man. “You were the one who assaulted me in a parking lot and crammed me into that car last night. I’m certain the casino has security footage that can be used as evidence.”

“M-m-me?” Lee says, even more baffled. “I was the one who put you there? That doesn’t sound like something I w-w-would do, does it, Chief?” He glances toward Canton.

“I’ve known you seven years, Lee,” Canton replies coolly, her arms crossed as she surveys the Master, “and I’d never say you were the sort who’d respond to threats of violence to yourself and the ginger lady you were having a nice evening with by stuffing a man into the trunk of a car, no. Doesn’t sound like you at all. I can’t imagine my good friend Hank, the head of security at Treasure Island who has access to all the security tapes, would think you were that sort, either.”

Lee’s gaze darts back to Canton – it’s obvious he’s just as surprised by this revelation as everyone else – before he shrugs at the Master. “Well, you’ve taken the m-m-matter to my supervisor. Satisfied?”

Even with the weight of half a dozen eyes on him, the Master still manages to maintain his composure, like a cat that’s fallen from the back of a couch and walks away with profound hauteur, as though they meant to do that all along. Pulling his anger back in check, he takes a moment to stare everyone in the eye.

“Don’t worry about the bits of last night you can’t remember. I’m sure you’ll be seeing them around, here and there — internet, telly, what have you. Nothing’s ever truly gone, once the media gets hold of it.” He finishes smoothing his jacket. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few tabloid editors to call.”

The Master’s just past the big red truck, heading toward the road and the steady stream of taxis passing by the station, when a sharp, high-pitched yapping comes from driver’s side window. Everyone twitches in surprise. It’s like a spell breaking, whatever shock everyone felt at finding the Master in the trunk slipping away with the noise.

“What the hell is that thing doing in my truck?” Canton says. “It didn’t pee in there, did it?” She springs over to open the door, and the little brown and black dog makes a magnificent dive from the high seat, hits the ground running, and is off after the Master’s heels like a shot. It goes for his ankles and Achilles, snarling and biting like it’s gone mad.

The Master shakes his leg, trying to keep the little creature away even as he reaches the road and hails a cab. He’s kicking ineffectually, trying to punt the dog into traffic, but she’s a quick little thing and she manages to get in a few nips before dodging the taxi door he tries to close on her head. She sits on the pavement, panting in satisfaction and watching as the taxi pulls away.

Jack bursts out into deep-bellied laughter and hollers, “Good dog!” His short, sharp whistle catches the animal’s attention, and she trots back to the group and circles around Jack’s feet a few times before he picks her up.

“There was a dog in the truck.” It seems like a necessary thing for the Doctor to say, obvious as it is. “Rose, why was there a dog in the truck?”

“And what happened to the toucan you took onstage during your duet with Celine Dion?” Canton asks her.

The Doctor watches as Rose’s face pales, memories of an ill-fated trip to a zoo flitting through his mind. He can’t even remember the city they were in, caught up in the haze of that first tour, before they were…them. Before they were like they are now, like he hopes they are now.

But what he does remember is what it felt like to hold her hand, telling himself that it was going to have to be enough, sticky with candy floss and sweating in the sun as they walked into the bird enclosure.

A toucan named Benny took a shine to her, in what he’s sure was a fairly harrowing ordeal, but ultimately led to her tucked up close to him, fingers curled in his t-shirt, face buried in his neck, and his heartbeat thundering in his ears as the zookeepers did their best to distract poor, smitten Benny.

It was enough that Rose had sworn just a few months ago, apropos of nothing but a cereal advert on the telly, that she would never, ever be taking Joanie to the zoo.

Oh, god, Joanie. They have to get home. He checks his watch, they’ve got only a few hours left to get back to the hotel, get their stuff, and get to the airport. And he doesn’t even know where Mickey and Martha are.

Before he can inquire, Canton’s laughing. “I’m just kidding,” she says. “Celine’s not even in town right now.”

Rose releases an audible breath. “All right,” she says. “We need the highlights, the real highlights. Canton, can you brief Donna? She’ll know the sort of stuff that might cause trouble. Jack, you check in with Mickey and Martha. And you,” she points at the Doctor. “You come with me.”

The orders are given rapid-fire, brooking no argument, and the Doctor spares a moment to really look at her. Tired and rumpled and radiant – he’s completely in love with her, and even if she’s set to yell at him, he and that damn box in his pocket are going to suffer it with a smile.

Because he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, wants to marry her, in Las Vegas or London or the surface of the moon, it doesn’t matter.

He just has to figure out how to actually say that.

Canton gestures for Donna to come back into the station. “I think it’ll help to have a computer,” she says. “A lot of that stuff’s already online.”

Donna nods, and gives the Doctor a meaningful look, glancing briefly at Rose with her eyebrows raised, like she’s trying to communicate something to him. “You two should head back to the hotel, start getting things sorted,” she says. “Jack, why don’t you come in with us? You can call from there, and then you and Lee can fight for my honor.”

There’s a flashy glaze of bravado over her words, but the Doctor sees right through it, giving her a supportive wink as he heads to the passenger side of the car. He opens it and slides in, shutting the door behind him and the footsteps of the group grow faint as they walk back into the station.

He’s forcing himself not to look for Rose, she’ll get in the car in her own time, and he’s no sooner started counting backward from a hundred when the driver’s side door opens and closes, and then she’s sitting next to him.

She fits the key into the ignition, starting the car and maneuvering into traffic before either of them speaks. The radio is playing low in the background, DJ chatter that he’s ignoring until the bloke says his name.

“Did you hear? The Doctor and Rose Tyler may have finally tied the knot, right in our sinful city! Rumors are circulating both here and in merry, old London that the two –”

Rose’s hand shoots from the steering wheel, slapping at the radio hard enough that it had to sting at least a little. It works though, and the noise stops, Rose’s hand dropping to tense on the gear shift.

“It wasn’t legal,” he blurts and it sounds so loud, so very, very loud, that Rose jumps at the sound.

“What?”

“The…uh…well,” he gestures helplessly at the radio. “You need a license here, to do that. Legally. Gotta go to the courthouse first. And nothing…none of the clues, we didn’t go to the courthouse, Rose. It wasn’t real.”

Rose’s hand moves from the gearshift back to the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road. She’s taking measured, even breaths, and he just wants her to look at him, move, speak, do something, do anything.

“Rose?”


	4. Chapter 4

  
~~~~

The Doctor’s staring at Rose like he expects her to have some sort of answer.

What is she supposed to say? That she’s happy they aren’t married? That’s not true. They don’t need the vows to keep them together — they’re both in this for the long haul, there’s no doubt in her mind. But there’s a spark of want in Rose’s chest when she thinks about being properly married to the Doctor, about people calling him Mr. Tyler. The idea of a wedding band on his ring finger, one that she put there, makes her mouth dry and her heart thump, makes her want to climb right into his lap and stake a claim to the rest of his body, too.

The Doctor’s not the kind of man who abides by the trappings of religion or culture, and neither is Rose. She doesn’t necessarily want the fancy ceremony with a priest and cathedral and big white dress. This wasn’t the way she wanted to marry him, either, in Vegas and stoned and without remembering a single moment of it, but at a certain point … what if it’s the only wedding they ever have?

What if Rose has to give up that desire for a ceremony, a public affirmation between them?

Sure, she could be the one to propose, present the Doctor with an engagement ring. But if she initiates it and if he saysyes, she’ll always worry it’s only to placate her, and not because he really wants it too.

The Doctor’s always been the one to express aversions todomestic, phobias about settling down and making things official.

A flat, with curtains and doors and carpets and everything; a daughter, a living person they made together, just the two of them; they’ve stumbled into so much domesticity on accident, maybe it would be fitting for them to stumble right into marriage, too.

But the Doctor’s sitting beside her right now and blathering on about how it didn’t count, it wasn’t real.

He seems _relieved_.

“That must’ve been a load off your mind,” she finally says. She ought to make it sound flippant, like a joke, but she can’t bring herself to.

He hesitates before answering, as though he’s testing out words on his tongue to make sure they taste right. “Yeah, it wasn’t exactly ideal, y’know.” He’s rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, like he’s trying to manually coax his thoughts out. “The whole thing — all of it — just one big mistake. Well-ll, not a mistake, given the Master’s involvement. More of a colossal crime. We ought to call the police.”

“We’ll let Donna sort it,” Rose says, and she feels so tired she just wants to close her eyes and fall asleep right now. Sleep off this hangover, sleep off the disappointment, sleep until they’re back across the Atlantic, at Joanie’s birthday party at her Mum’s house.

The MGM Grand isn’t far, and although the Doctor keeps shifting restlessly in the passenger seat, compulsively touching his pockets, he doesn’t say anything else. By the time they hand off the rental to the valet, the silence has grown prickly and uncomfortable.

They’re saved from having to figure out how to broach it by themselves; Mickey and Martha are just inside the hotel lobby.

“You made it back alive!” Mickey says enthusiastically to the Doctor, looking far more chipper than anyone has a right to, after the night they all had. Martha notices Rose’s face and lifts her eyebrow inquiringly, but Rose shakes her head. She’ll talk about all of this eventually, just not right now. Later when they’re back in London, over a pint during girls’ night out with Donna and Martha, most likely.

“Mickaaaaaaay! Where have you been?” the Doctor calls so loudly that both women wince.

He claps Mickey on the shoulder in a gesture of affection, but as soon as the touch lands Mickey shouts in pain and flinches away, reaching up to protect himself.

The Doctor and Rose stare at him in surprise. “Well, you made it back alive but not unscathed, I see,” the Doctor says, the statement coming out as more of a question.

Martha smiles, her cheeks turning the tiniest bit purple. “We had quite the adventure this morning,” she says, plucking a mobile from her pocket. It’s the Doctor’s. It’s stone dead, but nothing a few hours’ worth of charging won’t fix. “Found this while we were there.”

“Did you tangle with the Master, too?” Rose asks Mickey as the Doctor takes his phone.

“The Master?” Mickey shakes his head, eyes wide. “Is he in Vegas?”

Rose nods. “Trust me, you don’t want the details right now.”

“We ended up spending some time at a few tattoo parlors. Nice folks, they were very helpful,” Mickey says.

“Oh, Mickey, just show them,” Martha sighs, more than a little excited.

He rolls his eyes and obligingly pulls down the collar of his shirt to reveal a bandage taped to the base of his neck. Beneath the bandage is a freshly-inked tattoo. It’s the Rod of Asclepius, turned horizontally so the beautifully crafted snake forms the letter M as it winds around the staff.

“So now we match. Sort of,” Martha says, beaming and pointing at the heart-encased Mickey Mouse on her bicep. Reaching over to grab her husband’s arm, she pulls him sideways, so their hips bump together. “It was his idea.”

It’s a bit painful, watching Mickey and Martha so in love that they’ve both put it on their bodies in a way that can never be erased. Or can only be erased with several thousand quid’s worth of laser treatments.

Rose knows she and the Doctor love each other, and that her life is always going to be inextricably tied to his – Joanie, their careers, her heart, it’s all wrapped up in him. And she should be happy with that, she usually _is_ happy with that, all the quiet ways they’ve knitted their lives together.

But now, faced with the reality of a rather loud token of that same sentiment, it stings a little. She loves him, and she’ll shout it from the rooftops or in front of a government official, but not if it’s going to make him uncomfortable.

Hell, they broadcast it every time they’re on stage, even. No, there’s nothing wrong with their life, and it seems silly to let some drug-fueled prank in Vegas make her think there is.

“It looks good,” she tells Mickey, and if her smile is slightly forced, well, she’ll get there in time, won’t she?

“Thanks,” Mickey grins at her. “Hurt though. I remember when you got that one,” he points at the star on Rose’s wrist, a reminder of a time when everything was so different, when she was playing no-name clubs and the Doctor’s voice in her ear was only her headphones. “You didn’t even blink. Tough as nails, you are.”

Her stomach flips at that, wishing for a second that she didn’t have to be so tough all the time, that things were easy, or easier. A normal life isn’t what she wants, she’d be dead bored in a matter of days, but there’s something to be said for the trappings of a normal life, while living out their extraordinary ones.

The Doctor beams at Mickey, and then at her. “She is, isn’t she?”

And there’s that settled then, Rose Tyler – tough enough to ignore the voice in her head, if only to live up to expectations.

“We should head back to the room,” Martha says, still clinging to Mickey’s arm. “There’s not much hope for the furniture, but maybe we could save you a few extra charges by putting things back together.”

Next to Rose, the Doctor’s eyes grow wide. “What’s wrong with the room?”

Rose had forgotten all about that, that the Doctor hasn’t seen the suite since yesterday, and has no idea the state it’s in.

“It’s a bit of a tip,” Rose says, happy to have the subject changed. “Donna had your card limit upped last time we were in Berlin though, should be fine.”

Mickey leads them to the lifts, holding hands with Martha as they walk in front of the Doctor and Rose. The Doctor looks at her sideways for a long moment and then takes her hand with his own, seemingly resolved by the nod of his head.

It’s a nice reminder that all she really needs adorning her fingers is the Doctor’s twined around them. She decides if it’s still bothering her when they get home and get through Joanie’s party, she’ll bring it up again. Now, though, they have to get out of this city.

Back in the suite, they work for an hour, righting things that have been flipped, disposing of rubbish, packing their bags. The Doctor’s credit card is still going to bleed out when the charges hit, but at least they’ve tried.

They ring down for a bellhop and soon they’re checked out of the hotel, luggage in the boot of the rental car and plans to meet Jack and Donna at the airport.

Rose lets the Doctor drive this time, content to stare out the window, billboards for hotels and shows and wedding chapels rolling by. She wonders how they found the one they apparently ended up at, wonders whose idea it was.

They pass the tattoo parlor that Mickey and Martha had visited earlier, and conversation about tattoos they’ve always wanted fills the rest of the drive to the airport.

The Doctor offers up a story about nearly inking Clash lyrics onto his chest, interrupted at the last second by the Master, right before he’d signed with Gallifrey. It’s a story Rose has never heard before and she thinks about it until they’re standing in the queue for the security checkpoint.

Is it a good thing that they can still surprise each other? Or a bad thing that there’s still so much she doesn’t know?

It’s hard to concentrate on the answer though, not only because of the dull headache still rolling through her skull, but also because of the way the Doctor is dancing around in the queue, looking nervous and agitated. He’s got his hand in his pocket, jangling the fabric up and down.

“Do you have to use the loo?” Donna snaps, glaring at him. She’d changed into jeans and a top when they’d met up with her and Jack, and it suits Rose just fine, no walking, talking, wedding dress reminder to shift her mind to things she’s trying to avoid. They haven’t gotten the full report on what happened with Canton yet, but now doesn’t seem like the time to ask.

“The loo! Of course! Yes, that’s what I have to do. I have to go and do that right now,” the Doctor says, apparently elated to have the needs of his body pointed out to him. “I’ll meet you at the gate! No need to wait for me, you just…you go on through security now, without me, and I’ll go, alone, and I’ll meet you there.”

The erratic movements of his hand in his pocket have stopped and he looks hard at Rose for a second before darting away.

They reach the front of the security line a few minutes later, dutifully emptying their pockets into the small bins provided. Donna’s eyebrows raise as they’re doing it, as if she’s just realized something.

Rose nudges her. “You okay?”

Donna nods. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I just – it’s nothing.” She looks away as Jack walks through the security scan.

“You made a beautiful bride, by the way,” Donna adds, and Rose nearly winces, but there’s something to the way Donna’s said it, it’s almost like a question.

“Did I?” Rose tries to try keep from scoffing. “Shame I can’t remember it then.”

Donna peers at her curiously, as Mickey and then Martha walk through the scan ahead of them.

“Is that something you’d want? A wedding?”

Rose shrugs and nods for Donna to take her turn at the scan. Donna turns and walks through it, but spins around to wait for Rose to finish, apparently ready to pick up the conversation.

“I don’t know, Donna,” Rose says, joining her on the other side. “It’s not the wedding I want, not necessarily, but being married to the Doctor, all official and everything? Doesn’t seem so bad, right?”

Donna laughs, scooping her carry-on up from the conveyor belt while Rose does the same, the five of them trooping toward the gate.

“Better you than me, lady,” Donna says.

Rose smiles, but the expression still feels sad. “It’s not like it matters. The Doctor…that’s not him. Living in sin for the rest of our lives, that’s more us.”

The way Donna keeps looking at her is unnerving and Rose would just as soon be done with the whole conversation.

“What about you?” Rose asks. “Is a legal marriage in the cards for Donna Noble?”

Now Donna’s the one that looks uncomfortable.

“I’d like it to be,” Donna finally says, just as they’re approaching their gate.

They collapse into a bank of chairs, Mickey, Martha, and Jack chattering away happily, as Donna and Rose sit side-by-side and stare out the window at the tarmac.

All these things they’ve been told to want, and then told they shouldn’t need, and all the guilt swimming around the whole fucking pool.

It should be enough to have someone that loves her, and it is, it really is, except the idea of all of it, that’s what she keeps circling back to – official commitments and rings to seal them, it’s nice even if it’s unnecessary.

The Doctor joins them a few minutes later, just as Rose is rummaging in her bag for her headphones. Some sappy music and a nice, long nap on the flight home, that’s what she needs. Bon Iver, Iron and Wine, everything from Joanie’s sleepy time playlist will do nicely – and then she’ll leave all this behind.

Before the Doctor can take the seat next to her, Donna’s tugging him away.

“Coffee,” she tells him. “Now.”

Rose watches their reflection in the glass in front of her. They get as far as clearing the gate before Donna’s stopping him, turning to point at Rose’s back and saying something the Doctor’s listening to intently.

She can’t see the reflection of his face, not with the way he’s standing, but she sees his posture change, suddenly standing up much straighter as Donna smiles at him.

She pulls him along again then, moving out of Rose’s view, but he looks happier now, steps somehow lighter as they walk away. Whatever it is Donna’s told him, it’s clearly delighted him.

When they return to the gate, the Doctor passes out the cups, setting Rose’s aside before she can reach for it. Instead he sits down next to her, hands on her shoulders to turn her toward him, and then he’s staring at her intently.

“I love you,” he says. She feels a flush of warmth – it’s nothing new, not anymore, but there’s something about the way he’s said it this time, full of conviction and happiness that she catches herself smiling back at him.

“I love you, too,” she says, and something unknots in her chest. It’ll come back, get all tangled again, she’s sure of it, but for now, this is going to be enough.

He presses a kiss to her lips, grinning happily, and a little bit like he has a secret, but then he’s passing her the cup of coffee and she lets herself get involved in a discussion over the best hangover cures.

Sleep seems to be the common consensus, and after they board the plane, Rose takes it upon herself to test it out, tipping her head to the Doctor’s shoulder and falling asleep after only a few minutes in the air.

When she wakes, it’s to the brush of the beverage trolley as it’s pushed by her leg and the Doctor’s arm reaching by her to grab a glass of something from the flight attendant.

He thanks the bloke with a smile and then turns it on Rose. “Good morning, love,” he chirps. “Or, well, good night, but you know,” he waves his hand in the air toward the darkened plane window, “time zones.”

He takes a sip of his drink, fingers fishing in the small foil packet in his lap for a peanut before handing both items to Rose.

“Either way,” he says. “Breakfast is served.”

She takes the peanut and the cup with a laugh. “Soda and a single honey roasted peanut, what ever did I to deserve you?”

He winks at her as she rolls her eyes. “Must’ve been good, whatever it was.”

She pops the peanut into her mouth, scooping a few more from the packet and washing them down with the soda before handing it back to the Doctor. He finishes it in a long drink, just in time to hand the empty cup back to the flight attendant as he returns to the front of the plane.

There’s a small screened installed in the back of each seat in the first class cabin. The one in front of the Doctor is playing something with Mitchell and Webb, his headphones plugged into the jack in the armrest.

She hadn’t bothered to turn her own screen to anything before falling asleep, and instead it displays animation of a globe, a small plane icon moving imperceptibly across the Atlantic.

“Is that where we are?” She points at the screen.

“Yep,” he says. “And that’s where we were,” he points at Las Vegas on the globe, “and that’s where we’re going,” this time his finger lands on London.

Rose nods, shifting to get at the screen controls on her armrest.

“Wait,” the Doctor says, hand landing on her forearm to keep it in place. He’s suddenly tense in the seat next to her, wiping his free hand on his trousers as he shifts to face her.

“What?”

“I just – do you wanna play a game?” His face is pale, pinpricks of sweat beading on his forehead, but his eyes are bright and imploring, the words rushing by his lips even faster than usual.

“…Sure,” she says, watching him carefully. “What sort of game?”

He points at the globe spinning slowly on the screen again, over Australia this time.

“What happened when we were here?”

She squints at the screen, trying to remember Australia, but the only thing she can recall is the terrible food poising she’d gotten after the show.

“I got sick,” she says, unsure.

“Exactly! You got sick and I took care of you. First time I’d ever really done that. Vomiting, Rose, you werevomiting, and I stayed.”

He’s nodding his head, grinning, like there’s something she ought to be picking up on, but she’s not quite on to the game yet, whatever it is.

“What about here?” This time his finger touches Cleveland.

She flips through her memories. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there, but she suspects it’s more than just his induction. What else happened – oh!

“First time I played Sexy,” she says, catching on now.

He beams at her. “And here?” His finger hovers over Tokyo now.

She chews on her lip, thinking it over, Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, it wasn’t too long ago they were in Tokyo, couldn’t even be two years yet –

“Joanie! That’s where we…um…made Joanie,” she says, refusing to blush.

He nods, waggling his eyebrows. “It is.” He still looks a little pale, and a little jittery, but she chalks it up to all the caffeine, coffee and soda and sugar on top of a hangover.

“Here?” He points at Amsterdam.

She grins at him. “I’ve never seen anyone eat a brownie that fast.”

His head tips closer to hers, mouth near her ear. “I’ve never seen anyone come for that long.”

Then he’s pulling away from her face in a fit of movement, apparently unable to sit still now that she’s gotten the hang of the game.

“Here?” He’s back to London.

“First kiss.”

Another tap over London.

“First shag.”

Tap.

“First show.”

Tap.

“First ‘I love you.’”

Tap.

“Joanie.”

Tap.

“Home.”

His free hand is fidgeting at his side, rooting for something in his pocket as he lifts the finger on the screen once more.

“And what about here, Rose?” He points at the plane hovering over the Atlantic, the little icon meant to signify them, right here, right now. “What happened here?”

His hand is shaking just the slightest bit, tiny little tremors that are fluttering up his arm and she follows them all the way to his face, to where he’s looking at her with an expression she’s only seen once before, in the delivery room when Joanie was born. Fear mixed with awe mixed with love and what is it, what’s wrong –

“I’ll tell you,” he says. “Here, Rose,” he taps at the screen even if neither of them are looking at it. “Here is where I asked you to marry me.”

There’s a rush of white noise, Rose’s own limbs going wobbly, everything boneless and warm as she struggles to pull herself back in, all of her limbs, her organs, her cells, the very atoms that make her up, all of it flying in a million directions.

He moves his hand from the screen, twining it with one of hers, and every place their skin is touching tingles with light.

“Rose, you’re my best friend,” he says and she struggles to breathe, air escaping on a rattle, full of laughter and disbelief. “And I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she mumbles quietly, and he grins at her.

“That’s – that’s a good sign,” he says, voice unsteady as his fingers tighten around hers. He swallows, the muscles of his throat working at the edges of her vision, shaking his head to reset himself. “And we’ve had bad memories on planes, and good memories on planes, and memories we’ve already forgotten on planes.”

She nods at him to continue, still surrounded by the buzz of joy, the haze of disbelief.

“But I like it up here, with you,” he says. “Because wherever you’re going, I want to go, and whenever I’m with you, my feet don’t touch the ground anyway.”

She laughs, a watery sound that’s matched by her eyes, and he brings up the hand not clenched with hers to show her the ring pinched between his fingers.

“Rose Tyler, will you marry me?”

She nods, laughing again, as a few tears spill over. “Of course,” she says. “Of course, of course, yes!”

He smiles and presses his mouth to hers, pulling back only to grin again as he slips the ring on her finger.

From across the aisle, in a plane she assumed was full of sleeping passengers, Jack’s voice sounds loud and clear.

“She said yes!”

The plane erupts into applause, the hoots and hollers of their friends audible even over the din, but she can’t look at them, can’t look at anything that isn’t the Doctor, and she tugs him forward for another kiss.

She slips her tongue out for only a second, the eyes of the entire plane presumably on them, and he grins against her mouth, both of them breathless as the noise of the crowd tapers off in the background.

“And none of you are to say a thing, got it?” That’s Donna’s, instructing the plane, as Rose and the Doctor continue kissing.

They ease off gently, lips brushing in short passes until they’re left with their foreheads tipped together and the other passengers have quieted.

“Probably a little obvious if we both head for the loo right now, isn’t it?” The Doctor’s voice is a low rumble. “Should have thought this location thing through better.”

She smiles, rubbing her nose against his before being struck with an alarming thought. She pulls back from him, looking at him intently. “You thought thisthrough though, right?” She gestures between them, and then down at the ring. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this, because of what happened in Veg –”

He tips his forehead to hers again, cutting her off. “Rose, I’ve had that ring in my pocket for weeks.”

She smiles, unable to keep it back again. “Probably can’t go to the loo,” she says. “But you find a blanket and we’ll see if we can’t work something out.”

He’s got his hand in the overhead bin before she even realizes what’s happening, quickly sitting back down again as he spreads the blanket over their laps.

“Let’s, Rose Tyler, let’s work something out.”

This plane is older, the first class cabin more cramped with fewer amenities. Which means two things: Rose can cuddle closer to the Doctor because they aren’t separated by a wall and swiveling chairs, and the armrest is permanently fixed in a down position.

Difficult, but workable.

The cold metal ring is slowly warming on her finger, and it’s a pleasantly strange weight, one that will take getting used to. Shifting sideways onto her hip, snuggling down under the blanket, she rests her head on his shoulder. He closes his eyes and tips his head back, and for all anyone else can tell, they’re fast asleep.

Of course, they’ve spent just as much time on airplanes as they have on that rickety blue tour bus, and this isn’t the first time they’ve ended up under a blanket together. The Doctor’s practically got the process down to a science, moving his hand without disturbing the fabric in the slightest, almost like a magic trick.

The Doctor makes the first foray, fingers sliding off the armrest and over her thigh. He slowly strokes the inseam of her jeans with his fingertips, fingernails tickling through the fabric, his thumb pressing across the top of her leg, anchoring his touch. Turning her head further into his shoulder and closing her eyes, Rose lets out a quiet sigh, her breath hot and humid against his shirt. Normally she’d echo his movements, stroking along his thighs and working her way toward his inseam before she settled her attention on his lap, but she dispenses with the foreplay this time around.

Her arm, situated beneath his, shifts just a fraction; her hand slides across the curve of his ribs and hip, and settles against his fly. The Doctor grunts, and tries to disguise the noise as a cough. His legs open a little, the motion of his own hand pausing as she strokes him with her knuckles. Long, slow sweeps up and down, first on one side of the zip and then the other, circling higher toward his belly as he grows hard.

The Doctor’s so distracted, his touches have become erratic and fitful. Moving her left leg, she pins his fingers between her thighs, squeezes, holds him still.

“Relax and enjoy your flight,” she exhales into the head of his shoulder, words followed by teeth digging into the fabric and skin beneath.

He slumps down further into his seat, flicking open the button on his trousers. Rose is glad, it would’ve been a difficult proposition from this angle. She snags his hand before he can pull away, hooking her pinkie and ring fingers with his as she uses her thumb and index finger to unzip his fly and ease him out, over the waistband of his pants and past the zipper on his trousers.

Opening her eyes a fraction, Rose checks to make sure the blanket isn’t tented too obviously, then hazards a glance at the Doctor’s face. He’s got his head tipped back and his mouth open, his adam’s apple quivering as he takes shallow breaths. His pulse is thumping away in his neck, and Rose knows exactly how balmy the hollow between it and his shoulder are right now, she’s buried her face in precisely that spot hundreds — probably thousands of times. She knows exactly where to run her teeth along his collarbone and the head of his shoulder, the spot beneath his earlobe to flick with her tongue, the way he shudders and gets instantly hard when she licks the shell of his ear and then blows air across it.

None of which is within her grasp right now, thanks to this fixed armrest and a plane full of potential onlookers.

So Rose takes advantage of what she does have within her grasp, pulling his hand along with her own as she strokes up and down. Her thumb and index finger encircle him, and his fingers trail along behind, stroking the base of his shaft and balls. She teases at the ridge around the tip before running her palm across the top. His hand goes rigid against hers, his breath stops, and she pushes her front teeth into his shoulder again, repeating the movement.

Their hands work together, and most of the time he lets her set the pace, except at a certain point when his long fingers clamp down around hers and he begins to quicken the long, slow stroke she’s been maintaining. Within seconds, he’s quivering beside her, muffled groans escaping from the back of his throat as he tries to swallow them down.

The Doctor stills, slumped in his seat and breathing slowly. Grinning, Rose rubs her nose against his shoulder and tucks him into his pants.

“Brilliant,” he sighs quietly, nuzzling her head with his cheek. The hand on her thigh squeezes, and she wiggles in her chair. “I don’t know what I’ve ever done to deserve you.”

“I can think of a few things. Go freshen up. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Planting a kiss on the crown of her head, he pulls the zip closed on his trousers and climbs across her to get out of their row. Rose wads up the blanket they’d been using and crams it against the wall, then scoots over into his seat, nestling down and relaxing into the warmth his body left behind.

~~~~~

When the Doctor returns from the loo, Rose is fast asleep. Her head is resting at a exceedingly uncomfortable-looking angle, her arms crossed over her stomach and her face twitching restlessly.

He settles into the aisle seat and draws her onto his shoulder. The quiet, dark airplane, his own profound sense of sated bliss, Rose wearing his engagement ring and resting against him … now seems like the logical time to reflect on the day’s emotional roller coaster, to process through his feelings about everything that happened, about how those things affected not only him and Rose, but also Donna and Jack and Martha and Mickey.

The Doctor’s soft snoring starts seconds later.

As soon as the plane touches down in London, Rose is on the phone to her mum. She’s particularly adamant about telling Jackie before any media organizations get hold of the engagement news. For the first time in forty-eight hours, it occurs to the Doctor exactly how Jackie Tyler must have reacted to the idea of him marrying Rose at a quickie chapel in Las Vegas.

He was fairly certain all the effects of the alcohol and drugs had worn off, they were out of his system, but the Doctor’s knees and stomach all begin to go wobbly.

Rose finishes leaving a message for Jackie and takes his hand with a smile. The metal of her ring is warm where it digs into his fingers. He squeezes harder, and she laughs.

“You look like you were hit by a truck,” she says, reaching up with her free hand to try to fix his hair.

“America,” he snorts. Pauses. “So … how do you suppose your mum’s feeling today? Do you think she’s over that little cold she had? In light of everything that happened during our trip, you don’t suppose she’s caught a case of homicide, too?”

Before Rose can answer, the line of passengers in the center aisle starts moving, and they’re swept up in the deboarding process. The airport personnel hustle them through customs, which doesn’t stop a few enterprising people from snapping shots of Rose in particular.

The closer they get to the car, and Wilf waiting with an open door and broad smile, the more certain the Doctor is that he’s going to be dead within the hour.

“Welcome home,” Wilf says, embracing all of them.

Donna hugs her grandfather and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Keep these two out of trouble on the way to Jackie’s, would you? I’ve got a PR firm to meet with, and a masseuse to see afterward. Love you, Granddad.” She hugs the Doctor. “Treat her right, Rock Boy, or I’ll murder you.” Finally, Rose gets her turn. “Congratulations, and take this the way I mean it — I’m forever grateful not to be in your shoes. The animal transportation service will be delivering Rose-the-Dog to your mum’s house by tomorrow, so give her some warning, and help her figure out a better name for that mutt, will you?”

With that, Donna’s gone in a puff of taxi exhaust.

When the Doctor and Rose are finally alone in the back of the car, collapsed together on the bench seat with the privacy partition up between them and Wilf, she nudges him in the ribs and laughs. “Donna’s been texting with Lee since we landed.”

“What? Lee? Lee ‘the American’ McAvoy? Really?” The last word comes out a squeakier than he intended, and he clears his throat, lowers his register. “What for?”

She shrugs. “He seems like a nice bloke, actually. Apparently he and Jack ended up hitting it off, as well. They both helped Donna finish tying up all the loose ends in Vegas. Lee’s never been out of the States, and Donna invited him to visit London.”

“Did she now?” Again, with the squeak.

“Lee could be a good thing for her. Seems like our life has been that way — the unexpected, unplanned things tend to be the best for both of us. Maybe that’s true for everybody, Donna included.”

The Doctor hums contemplatively. “Donna and an American. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“The Doctor putting a ring on my finger. My mum never thought she’d see the day,” Rose retorts, catching her tongue between her teeth, the corners of her lips turning upward.

He turns to face her, taking both hands with his own and staring at her with grave solemnity. Her smile vanishes and worry creeps into her expression, like she’s waiting for a shoe to drop somewhere.

“Rose, I’m dying to see Joanie. It’s killing me, being away from her. The only other person I’ve ever missed this much was you. Regardless of the dangers, I’ll be walking into your mum’s house, no matter what. But after everything that got leaked to the press regarding our adventures in Vegas, and the odds that your mum’s been hoarding tabloids like they’re religious texts, ready to thump me over the head with them … I’d like to know my odds of making it out alive afterward, so I can face my prospective death with some manly dignity.”

“Pretty good, I’d say. You’ve got a pretty big bargaining chip, when it comes to negotiating for your life with Jackie Tyler,” Rose replies, wiggling her left hand. The large stone pokes his fingers.

“The second thing I need to know, is that you’re going to be the one to tell her she’s just become the proud owner of a brand new pint-sized furry mutt named Rose.”

She wrinkles her nose and stares up at the roof of the car. “All right, I’ll break the news. But let’s leave it until tomorrow, yeah?”

“Brilliant. Now, given our average speed and the distance from Heathrow to your mother’s house, we should have approximately twenty-five minutes of complete privacy in the back of this car.” He leans forward and her eyes widen as she tracks him, until he brushes his lips along the angle of her jaw, his hand finding her hip and his index and middle fingers tugging gently at the waist of her jeans.

“And the last piece of information — the most vital piece of information I need — is whether I can get you to come during the next twenty-five minutes. Before I have to share you with anyone else. Before you have to be Rose, Joanie’s mum; or Rose, Jackie’s daughter; or Rose, the rock goddess; or Rose, the media darling. Right now, when you’re just Rose. And you’re mine. Only mine.”

Rose lets out a stuttering gasp as he shifts around to kneel in front of her, in the small space on the floor. It’s a cramped spot, but he’s raised up enough so he can kiss her properly, like he wanted to on the airplane when she was biting his shoulder and their hands were working together on his cock. Mouths open, tongues sliding together and drawing apart, licking and tasting until she’s breathless.

“It’s worth a try,” she says, and a half-formed smile touches her face before she grabs him by the hair on the back of his head and pulls him in for another greedy kiss.

Incidentally, he gets her to come in twelve minutes.

In the driveway at Jackie’s mansion, satisfaction puts a spring in his step as he climbs out of the car behind Rose. He even manages to smile when Jackie opens the front door, but his heart feels like it’s going to absolutely pop at the sight of Joanie in her grandmum’s arms. Little wiggling bundle of baby, about to turn twelve months old within a matter of days, she actually smiles and bursts into happy laughter the sight of her parents, arms flapping in excitement.

The Doctor doesn’t try to compete with Rose’s dash across the tarmac to Joanie; he’d flat-out lose.

“Hold still, hold still, let me get a look at it!” Jackie is swaying back and forth alongside Rose as Rose rocks the baby, squinting at her finger. “Oh my lord, is that one of Harry Collins’?”

“Um, well-ll-l, it’s an antique, actually. Apparently it belonged to one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting. She left it at an estate in Scotland for some reason, and it eventually resurfaced in London.” The Doctor tugs on his ear, his eyebrows drawing together. “Although I did purchase it through Harry. How did you know?”

“Ooooh, _Harry_ , is it? You call him that to his face?”

The Doctor is baffled. “Yeah. It’s his name.”

“‘It’s his name,’ he says, easy as you please” Jackie tuts. “It’s her royal highness’s personal jeweler, that’s why!”

“I take it you’re not going to demand I give it back to him, then?” Rose says, still bouncing a very happy Joanie.

“I suppose you ought to keep it,” Jackie concedes, hands on her hips as she squints at the Doctor. In a sudden rush of movement, she lunges forward and pulls him into an embrace. “Come here, you beautiful boy! I never thought I’d see the day!” And with that, Jackie Tyler’s lips touch the Doctor’s for the first – and the last – time in both their lives.

The Doctor staggers away, sputtering and wiping his mouth. Jackie whirls around, giddy as a girl, snags Rose and Joanie, and drags them inside the house.

After a while, they’ve all settled into the living room. The Doctor is cuddling with Joanie in an armchair, and Rose and Jackie have huddled together on the couch, watching video on the little camera they bought for her a while ago. She’s been filming Joanie day and night for the last few days, and Rose is drinking in the footage like a dying man.

The Doctor will eventually watch the video, too — it was nice to get away for a few days, just him and Rose, but after a while he desperately misses the sight of Joanie throwing apple slices on the floor, and unerringly picking the most dangerous thing in the room to crawl toward, and clapping in time as he sings “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush” and performs his patented hand-motions that never fail to send both Joanie and Rose into gales of laughter.

At the moment, though, the Doctor’s attention is occupied by the real thing, Joanie right here on his lap. He’s also got his eye on the side table next to his chair, and the large stack of tabloids piled there, all of them filled with screaming headlines and pictures of himself, Rose, Donna, Jack and Lee (the mysterious dashing American!, as the Sun labeled him). All of them are taken from close proximity, definitely not a paparazzi with a long lens but someone with the group the entire night. The Master’s driver, apparently. Still never did figure out that bloke’s name.

Of course, the Doctor’s still got the Toclafane prototype mobile in his suitcase, and it’s just ripe for data mining and maybe, if the whim seizes him, a bit of reverse engineering to see if the Master’s engineering prowess is still as rubbish as it ever was.

Flipping through the tabloids, the Doctor skims past shots of himself in an altercation with casino security (apparently a kerfuffle over card counting, which explains the $3 million dollar cheque made out to ‘Miss Wipplesmythe’ that Donna shoved into Rose’s hands before they went through customs). There’s Jack, swimming in the Bellagio fountains, doing routines in time with the fountain and music. Lee and Donna, slow-dancing at Pure while everyone around them is flailing in time to the fast, pounding club music. The Doctor, inexplicably wearing leather pants and eyeliner, first onstage and then bending Rose backward over a tiny round table just offstage. Mickey DJing, and the club going wild. Martha doing shots at a different bar with Criss Angel, and apparently drinking him under the table, if the last photo of him sliding out of his chair is anything to go by. Martha and Mickey at a tattoo parlor, and apparently after Martha was done with her Mickey Mouse, Lee got Donna’s signature inked on his right butt cheek along with an “X.”

The Doctor’s favorite, by far, is a shot of Rose in front of a billboard. It’s an ad for his recent compilation album, the one featuring his most popular duets. She’s seductively eyeing the camera, and her mouth is open, strategically placed over a certain portion of his anatomy. The caption beneath reads: “Party girl Rose Tyler shows her enthusiasm for the Doctor and his rising sales figures.”

Joanie catches sight of the paper and claps, pointing at the photo of her mother in an obscene pose and shouting “Mama! Mama!”

Rose and Jackie look up from the other side of the room. “Hello, love!” Rose says brightly, waving.

When they go back to the video, the Doctor discreetly rips the picture from the tabloid and tucks it into his wallet. 


End file.
